Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Pasta Salad (with beet water)

After boiling some beets the other day I saved the dark pink water on a hunch that I could use it for something else.

The internet yields many useful and everyday ideas for beet water, most of which take advantage of the tendency of beet juice to stain anything it touches: egg dye, facial toner, hair dye, colorant for various foods, a liquid addition to soups. And there was one weird one: Faux grape jelly. Bleh.

I decided to make a pasta salad, cooking the pasta in the beet water. I thought it would be pink, but not this pink! The pasta even gained a very slight, sweet taste of beets.
What I had on hand: white onion, green onion, diced olives, pepperoncinis. I almost added some fake sausage but was really into the flavors of the raw onions and didn't want that to be overshadowed. Pasta salad always has this distinct flavor and I realized this flavor is vinegar. So I added white wine vinegar (to taste) with olive oil and salt and pepper. As a pasta salad, it is middle of the road. Visually though, I am a very happy camper.A completely non-related note to those who comment on the blog: I love it! And I want to respond to each post but I cannot, yet, figure out how. Sad. This is my blog and I don't know how to work it. Hopefully I'll make some breakthroughs soon.

4 comments:

Bree said...

middle of the road... jokes! it was delicious!

alan.orth said...

My favorite was the "happy camper" bit :). Keep it up, sis. Maybe I could do a guest post on how to make toast with peanut butter and honey. As long as I can borrow your dinosaur it'll be a hit!

alan.orth said...

Oh, and I've never used blogspot so I don't know how you're supposed to reply. Maybe you have to just add a reply like the rest of us nothin' spesh users?

Randi said...

I would love for you to do a guest post!