Roasted Vegetable Pasta Salad

On Friday we were invited to to a showing of a movie at the Unitarian church in Youngstown. Some of my cooking was requested so I decided to take some roasted vegetable pasta salad and two cakes. The cakes that I decided to take were a chocolate mint cake and a peanut butter cake. Everyone loved the food and my friend Rachel asked me to post the recipe for the pasta salad so here you go Rach...

Ina Garten is always looking for a way to "turn up the volume" on regular food. When I first started making this salad I would use bottled Italian dressing and canned roasted red peppers. Yesterday I had enough time to "turn up the volume" myself.

I first started off by roasting 3 peppers. I chose yellow, red and orange. I think that these peppers are a bit sweeter than the more common green peppers. I also love the vibrant color that they add to the salad. Over the open flame of our range I roasted all three peppers until they were charred black.


I then put the peppers in a brown paper sack for about ten minutes and let them steam.


Meanwhile I roasted the asparagus. I tossed fresh asparagus in a few tablespoons of olive oil, salt and pepper. Place the asparagus in a 425 degree oven for about 15 minutes.


In my serving bowl I mixed the vinaigrette. I normally would use a small bottle of Italian dressing, but in the spirit of "turning up the volume" I decided to double the recipe for the vinaigrette that I posted last week.

Louis' Vinaigrette

2 teaspoons dijon mustard
1 tsp ground black pepper
2 tsp kosher salt
6 tablespoons red wine vinegar
3/4 C. Olive Oil (I do not like to use extra-virgin here)
1/2 C. Parmesan cheese
2 Tablespoons sour cream
2 cloves of crushed garlic

In a large bowl whisk together mustard, pepper, salt, vinegar, parmesan cheese, sour cream and garlic.

Slowly whisk in olive oil until all ingredients are combined.

After the peppers have steamed use two paper towels to wipe the charred skin off. Do not run the peppers under water because that will wash away all of the flavor.


I then chopped up the peppers...


When the asparagus was finished I chopped it into bit size pieces...


Boil, drain, rinse and cool 1 1/2 lbs of a pasta of your choice. I used Cavatappi I rinsed and chilled the pasta because I did not want it to absorb too much of the dressing which it would do if you mixed it while the pasta was hot. Once pasta has cooled toss it with the vinaigrette, asparagus, peppers, 1/2 teaspoons of salt and 1/2 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper.


I also added cheese cubes. I do not know why I love these cheese cubes, I suppose I could have been a bit more sophisticated and use a feta cheese or bocconcini. I was feeling cheese cubes.


Everyone loved the salad!

I also made two chocolate cakes. I doubled the recipe for Martha Stewart's One Bowl chocolate cake so I would have extra cakes in the freezer whenever I need them. I made a mint buttercream and ganache for one and peanut butter buttercream for the other.

Here is my huge double batch of cake batter.