Perfect Pasta Salad

 

The picture above might not LOOK like perfect pasta salad, but I legit get sooooo many compliments on this pasta salad whenever I bring it. It's a refreshing take on the usual mayo-based pasta salads. The recipe was adapted from Amateur Gourmet and I'm glad that I printed it out on ... 07/22/2009 because I can't find it on his site anymore! Man, I would have been devastated if I lost the recipe. I always did my own thing with it from memory, but I still referred to it on his site for the base guidelines. The below recipe is based on my own tweaks.

Make this for your next outside get-together (helpful because there is no mayo in this recipe) or inside get-together and you'll be super popular!

Perfect Pasta Salad

Serves 10, depending on portions

12 oz non-noodle pasta (I like fusilli)

1 lb tomatoes, in small pieces

1/2 cup olives (kalamata or green)

1/3 cup diced artichokes in oil, drained

1 lb fresh mozarella, medium diced

Dressing:

5 sun-dried tomatoes in oil, drained

2 Tbsp red wine vinegar

6 Tbsp olive oil

1 garlic clove, chopped

1 tsp capers, drained

2 tsp kosher salt

1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper

1/2 cup parmesan cheese

1 cup packed basil leaves, chopped

Cook pasta in boiling salted water according to package directions, drain and set aside. In the meantime, place all dressing ingredients in a food processor and blitz until relatively smooth.

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and mix thoroughly!

Steak Au Poivre with Miso & Sansho Pepper

 

Sometimes I really really crave au poivre sauce. Like, the sauce itself with a nice steak, fries, mashed potatoes, etc. So when cabagges.world showed this recipe on their Instagram, I knew I had to try it.

Guys. It was SO GOOD.

I think I only had cilantro instead of parsley but it was fine. Everything else was amazing. It makes enough sauce for 2 steaks very generously, or I'm sure you can stretch it out to four steaks. Make sure you season your steak but not too aggressively because the sauce has a good amount of salt in it from the miso and the beef broth.

Steak Au Poivre with Miso & Sansho Pepper
Adapted from cabagges.world

1 1-1.5" thick ribeye steak (or whatever kind you prefer)

2 clove garlic, minced

1 shallot, minced

2 tsp ground pepper (preferably fresh ground)

1/2 cup sake

1/2 cup beef broth

1 Tbsp miso

1 tsp Sansho pepper

1/4 cup heavy cream

1/4 cup parsley (or in my case, cilantro)

Make sure steak is at room temperature (take it out of the fridge about 45-60 min before cooking). Rub steak all over with a neutral oil and then season both sides with salt and pepper. Heat a cast iron pan on high-ish. Sear steak for two minutes, then flip to the other side for another two minutes. Repeat. Then do each side for 1 minute more. This should get you medium rare. Adjust the cooking time further if you want it more cooked but the steak should be flipped every two minutes.

Turn heat to medium and without adding more oil, add garlic, shallots and pepper. Cook for about 30-45 seconds until shallots are translucent.

Turn heat up slightly and pour in sake to deglaze. Scrape with a wooden spoon and then reduce sake by half.

Turn heat down to medium and add beef broth. Bring to a low boil, add in miso and sansho pepper, and stir to combine.

Turn heat to low, then add heavy cream. Stir and reduce until it thickens to a gravy-like consistency. Taste and adjust for additional salt.

Add butter and parsley, stir to mix through and then serve!

Passion Fruit Mousse

 

We have a HUGE passionfruit vine in our backyard and it goes crazy throughout the year. I actually feel bad when I end up throwing some of them away because I know they're so expensive at the market. So I found this recipe for passion fruit mousse and I try to make it as often as I can. It needs a ton of passion fruit (like 20-25 of them, though you can use store-bought unsweetened passionfruit juice concentrate as well).

If you're using fresh passion fruit, prepare your 1 cup for the mousse by blitzing the pulp for a few seconds in a blender or Nutribullet. This loosens the membranes, which cling all the seeds together. Once blitzed, you can pass it through a sieve to get the juice. Use the back of a spoon to rub the seeds and push out as much juice as you can through the sieve. You should be left with a scoop-able spoonful of almost-dry black seeds once you're done. I did this in a few batches with the sieve directly on top of the measuring cup.

You'll have some bits of broken up seeds (which is totally OK by me) but if you're totally not into that, you can skip the blending and just push as much juice through the sieve as you can.

Passion Fruit Mousse

Adapted from Olivia's Cuisine

1 1/3 cups (290g) heavy cream, cold
1 can (397g) sweetened condensed milk
1 cup (265g) passion fruit pulp or unsweetened juice concentrate

1/3 cup fresh passion fruit pulp (with seeds)
3 Tbsp granulated sugar

Blend together the cream, condensed milk and passion fruit pulp in a blender for 3 minutes. Pour into dessert cups or ramekins (or small deli containers, as shown above). Refrigerate for at least 3 hours. Garnish with passion fruit topping; directions below).

In a small pan over medium-low hear, cook together the fresh passion fruit pulp and sugar together until the sugar dissolves. Continue to cook until topping thickens, about 2-3 minutes. Spoon evenly over the top of the passion fruit mousse. Cool to room temperature before topping mousse.

Topping can be made ahead of time and then refrigerated until needed.