pasta salad

It's a quiet weekend here at our house. Friday night we had a sick little boy - he picked up a tummy bug, poor little muffin. He started to come around yesterday afternoon - lost the pale, yellow colour on his face and was more his bouncy, chatty self but is still a bit listless and sleepy. And after a sleepless Friday night, D and I were dragging yesterday. And it's been hot. So I made a big pasta salad for dinner last night. My inspiration for this salad was a salad made by a friend for a church picnic before T was born - it included roasted chicken and corn and a dressing of balsamic vinegar and olive oil which was a delightful departure from the mayonaise heavy pasta salads I was more familiar with.

To make I cooked up some penne pasta and at the last minute tossed in some topped and tailed and chopped green beans.

In olive oil, I sauted one sliced onion, added some diced pancetta, ~ 2 cups of frozen corn, two sliced orange peppers and heated until the vegetables were soft. Then I added in 1 c of basil pesto (homemade). I tossed the veggies into the cooked, drained and cooled pasta and beans and added a few handfuls of roasted cashews and about a cup of diced smoked gouda, then poured a glug of balsamic vinegar and another glug of olive oil into the bowl and tossed. I seasoned with salt, pepper, cayenne pepper and celery salt.

With a green salad it was supper. And for dessert we had some of this lovely stuff.