PPN Pasta Salad

It is hot. It is the hottest November week in Melbourne on record since 1902. Today was a high of 35 C. It was still 24 C at midnight! Too hot. I'm hot and sweaty even as midnight approaches.

At 11am it was 28 C so I made dodgy banana berry muffins like these but using some baby oat flour as well as quinoa flour before it got any hotter. They weren’t great but I wanted to use up some bananas and Sylvia’s oat cereal that she is not eating. I cut up fruit to make a fruit salad a bit like this to have on hand. It is wonderfully refreshing. Less refreshing but oh so moreish is a new (and now melty) cashew and cherry chocolate I spied at the supermarket yesterday.

Sylvia and I have been drinking lots of fluids, eating watermelon, and dozing on the bed together. Not good weather for my baby or my cat. I would prefer to be in an air-conditioned office when it is so hot.

It is days like these I feel regret that we can’t run under a sprinkler outside. Sprinklers are outlawed in our drought and even if they weren’t, we don’t go outside in such heat because sunshine on a day like this means sunburn means skin cancer. Oh for those innocent summers of childhood. We lay in bed on hot nights and hoped mum would put the sprinkler close enough to the open window that drops of water would cool us down.

This is salad weather. I’ve been making lots and eating lots of simple salads. On the weekend I had a barbecue at my parents’ house with lots of lovely salads. Rice salad. Garden salad. Colesaw.

Last night I made pasta salad. I ate it again for lunch. Pasta salad can be heavy with too much pasta and/or too much creamy dressing. This one was just right with lots of vegetables so I am sharing what I did.

I am sending this salad to Chaya of Sweet and Savoury Says it All, who is hosting this week's s Presto Pasta Night (#139), an event founded by Ruth of Once Upon a Feast.

Pesto Pasta Salad
Serves 2-3

• 200g pasta – a bit less than a dessert bowl
• ½ cucumber, diced
• 1 carrot, grated
• 2 tomatoes, chopped
• 2 spring onions, thinly sliced
• handful parsley, finely chopped
• handful snow peas, chopped
• 1 bunch asparagus, chopped
• 2 dessertspoons yoghurt
• 1 dessertspoon mayonnaise
• 1 dessertspoon pesto

Cook the pasta in salted water according to the instructions on the packet. Meanwhile chop vegetables and put into large salad bowl, setting asparagus aside. Just before turning off heat on pasta, add asparagus. Drain and rinse under cold water. Toss with vegetables, yoghurt, mayonnaise and pesto.

On the Stereo:
This is My Life: Shirley Bassey