Let’s do the bunny hop

Hi all,

Easter is just around the corner. Many of you may be visiting family during this time and need a dish to bring along with you. Today I wanted to provide you guys with a pasta dish and dessert. The pasta dish has become one of my favorite summer salads. The colors in the pasta make this meal look gorgeous. The best part is that you can assemble this the night before to save you time the day of travel. I also like to make this beforehand so that the flavors marinade together. We'll start with the pasta first then move on to dessert.

What you need: 

One box of pasta-either farfalle or rotini

Half a cup of fresh chopped parsley 

One pint of cherry tomatoes 

One small package of mini pepperoni

One large cucumber 

Half a cup of olive oil

One packet of hidden valley ranch 

One package of fresh mozzarella 

One tablespoon of salt

One tablespoon of pepper

Cook pasta according to package; this is the only cooking required. Hooray! Next, in a small bowl combine olive oil, hidden valley ranch packet, parsley, salt, and pepper. Whisk until fully mixed. Dice your cucumber and mozzarella into small even pieces. In a large bowl toss all the ingredients together. Pour dressing mixture over your salad and give it a good toss. Serve immediately or cover and store in the fridge. You can make changes as necessary depending on what your family enjoys. I’d love to try this with some fresh cut corn on the cob and queso fresco or substitute the parsley for basil. The combinations are endless. This pasta salad is a great recipe to get those little wild things involved. Mine love cutting up vegetables. 

Next, we move on to the dessert, my favorite part. When I first moved in with Devon, I remember a conversation we had about dinner one day. I had mentioned that I’d love to have some ice cream later that evening after we had dinner and asked if we could stop at the grocery store to get some. Devon turned to me and smiled at his naive innocent fiancé and said the words I’ll never forget, “Caro, we’re adults now, we don’t have to wait until dinner to have dessert.” At that very moment I thought, be still my heart! And the rest is history. 

What you need:

One pound of strawberries 

One pint of blueberries 

One pre-made refrigerated pie crust

Zest of one lemon

One teaspoon of vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon 

1/4 cup of sugar, plus, one tablespoon of sugar. 

One egg

Preheat oven to 350°. Make sure to set your pie crust out and bring it to room temperature so that it is pliable when working with it. I’d say you should set it out about 15 minutes before you’re ready to start. Cut your strawberries into smaller pieces. In a bowl add your strawberries, blueberries, lemon zest, vanilla extract, cinnamon, and sugar. Gently stir until combined. Unroll your pie crust and cut out four circles. I used a small bowl, flipped it over and traced the outline of the rim. Next, pour about 1/4 of the fruit mixture into the center of each circle. Bring up the edges and fold them onto each other to make a bowl-like shape with your pie crust around the fruit. In a small bowl whisk your egg. Take a brush and lightly brush the sides of the pie crust with the egg. Sprinkle a pinch of sugar around the pie crust. 

Bake for 30 minutes or until crust is golden brown. Some fun additions to your little tarts could be a scoop of whipped cream or vanilla ice cream, and you could even top with a granola mixture for an added crunch. For decorative purposes, you could also add a tiny mint leaf to the top of each tart or dust each one with powdered sugar. Feel free to make it your customized version. 

I hope this helps you guys! The hardest part at my house is to keep the strawberries hidden so that the kids don’t eat them all before I start the dessert. The second hardest is convincing all three of the people I live with that we need to wait to eat them.

With love,

Carolina