We'll start with the cheater version, shall we, since it's been so hot here in the US? (Although I did tell Erin that in Virginia we call that summer!) I posted a pic of this salad on Instagram, and my friend Mariah said, "Cheater?" Well, trust me it is. Just because it's pretty doesn't mean it couldn't be any easier to make. I'm almost embarrassed to write out the recipe for you, but here goes:

Pint of cherry tomatoes (any/or any you happen to have growing in Neel's/your garden)
Container of those baby mozzarella balls
Handful of basil leaves, julienned
Pick your favorite vinaigrette. Ours is this. We used to make my mom bring cases of it up for us, but now our grocery store stocks it. Hooray! We like the original.

Uh, cook the pasta and combine? How easy is that? Add the vinaigrette to taste and let the salad sit at room temperature a bit to allow the flavors to blend. You can serve it refrigerated, but I really do prefer it at room temperature.

Now, if you have a bit more time...

So the cheater version was good, but it wasn't exactly what I was going for. Headed out the door and in a rush for a quick potluck dish? Perfect. Hot and tired weeknight where you only have energy for one burner? This is it. Still, I wanted to play around and do a little something more.

For one thing, I had some nice ingredients that I wanted to work with. We had a lovely batch

of tomatoes, and I wanted to bring out their flavor by roasting them. I'd snagged some blood orange vinegar at the grocery store and was dying to try that in something. And remember the wonderful people we rented our condo from when we went skiing last winter? Well, turns out she makes mustard and sent us some. It's delicious, and I was anxious to use some of that. Finally, as much as I love me some baby mozzarella balls, I wanted the texture of this salad to be creamier and I wanted a sweeter flavor to counteract the tang of the blood orange vinegar. Enter the honeyed goat cheese. Regular goat cheese would be fine, I'm sure. Anyhoo, here she is. If you make it, let me know how it turns out.

Pasta Salad with Blood Orange and Mustard Vinaigrette

For the salad:
1/2 pint cherry tomatoes
1 cup corn kernels (I use Trader Joe's frozen roasted corn)
1 handful julienned basil (hello, Neel's garden!)
Several tablespoons of honeyed goat cheese
Your choice of pasta, cooked to package instructions. I usually end up using half a pack or box for the three of us.

For the vinaigrette:
3 Tablespoons Blood Orange vinegar
1 Teaspoon mustard
4-5 Tablespoons oil (I picked olive, but you can choose any kind, really) or more, as needed.

Combine the vinegar and mustard and mix well. Stirring constantly, slowly add the oil so that the two liquids are emulsified. Add salt and pepper to taste. You can increase or decrease the total amount of vinaigrette by adding or reducing ingredients, as long as you keep the ratios the same. Also, any other vinegar will do.

In a 400º oven, roast the tomatoes on a cookie sheet until they are soft and wrinkly (That's a real cooking term right there, wrinkly.) When cool, combine all other ingredients in a bowl with the tomatoes, adding enough vinaigrette to bind them together. Again, let the salad sit long enough for the flavors to meld (at least half an hour), before serving and enjoy!

Something has changed for me and baking. Look, I'm not a baker (that's my mom) and I never will be, but I have had a bit of a shift in my baking kitchen. Before, baking felt like such a production to me. All that precision and the measuring and the flour and vanilla extract (Don't get me wrong, I love vanilla extract.). It felt like lots of moving parts and bits and pieces spread out across the kitchen island and lots of steps in the recipe and dishes to clean up after. Dishes for Neel to clean up after.

Like I said, a production.

But things have shifted a bit somehow. Before, baking was never something I would have attempted without much forethought, after dinner when the dishes were done and put away. Not on a weeknight when the homework was heavy and the evening was drawing close. You can't start a production when the day is nearly done, can you? It's different with these cookies. Brown Sugar Spice Cookies. Well. There you have it. Adapted from a recipe by Joy the Baker, these cookies have been described as being like Toll House Cookies without the chocolate chips. The dough always was the best part, really. That molasses-ey taste of brown sugar. And the spice? Cinnamon and ginger. That is all. Just another layer of flavor that shows that these are not your average cookie.

The first batch I made were perfect. For me and Neel, at least. Just a hint of sweet, they were more spice cookies than sugar cookies. Cal noted the difference and was less impressed. Oh, he ate them, but. They could have been sweeter, I guess.

So last week, once the dishes were done and the evening was dark upon us and the only sound was the scratch of Cal's pencil on his algebra homework, I said, "Maybe I should make cookies." And then I looked at the clock, saw that it was after 8 PM, and decided I was tired. And Callum said, quietly, "Oh."

Well. These cookies might just be worth pulling out the mixing bowls and the flour and the eggs, even on a week night.

Especially on a weeknight.

And when I went to make them sweeter, I knew I still didn't want them too sweet. I'm not a fan of fruit in cookies, so that eliminated raisins or cranberries. Chocolate chips would, I thought, overwhelm the spice. Too much sweet. But toffee? Now maybe we're onto something. A little nutty, a little sweet, toffee bits might be the perfect addition to our Brown Sugar Spice Cookies.

Turns out it was.

Brown Sugar Spice Cookies, adapted from Joy the Baker

2 C all-purpose flour

2 t baking soda

1/2 t salt

1/2 t ground cinnamon

1/2 t ground ginger

1.5 sticks (6 oz.) butter (I used salted), softened

1 1/4 C brown sugar

1 t vanilla extract

1 egg

1/4 C or more, toffee chips, depending on taste

Preheat oven to 350ºF.

Whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and ginger in a medium bowl and set aside. Using a stand or hand-held mixed, blend butter and and sugar until fluffy, about 3-5 minutes. You may need to scrape the sides of the bowl, and then add the egg and vanilla extract before blending one minute more. Once blended, add the dry ingredients all at once to the butter and sugar. Blend on low speed incorporating all of the flour. Once the flour disappears, add the toffee chips and blend the rest of the way with a spoon or spatula.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes. This will make the dough easier to work with.

Using baking pans lined with parchment paper, drop tablespoon size balls of dough onto the sheets. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until the edges begin to brown. Cool in the pan for 3-5 minutes and transfer to a wire wrack to cool completely.

They'll keep (unless you have boys) for about 5 days in an airtight container.

One last note, we're not gluten free, so it's pretty obvious that this recipe isn't either. Because we aren't I haven't paid much attention to what goes into modifying recipies to make them gluten-free for all my dear friends who are cutting gluten out of their own diets or those of their kids (I'm looking at you, Christine!). If you have any suggestions for me, pass them along and I'll do my best to incorporate, but remember, I'm no expert!

Oh, and you guys know I baked cookies just so I could play with my new lens, right?

pasta salad, 2 ways {life}

baking history :: not chocolate chip {life}