Porch Pasta Primavera

Here is the rough recipe of what I served when I had my family over to the back porch of our summer rental.  I am one of those "looks like about enough for me" types in the kitchen. But I have tried to approximate what I did that evening that was enjoyed by family.

Porch Pasta Primavera - Fete Avec Moi

Ingredients:
1 pkg of tricolor pasta ribbons
1 pkg of brussel sprouts (steamer bag)
tomatoes (2 the night before, 1 when serving)
2 oz. brie
Sea salt
lemon pepper
garlic pepper
3 leaves of kale
1 jar of tomato sauce
olive oil

Prepared the night ahead:
Microwave the bag of brussel sprouts. [~4 minutes]
In a skillet coated with olive oil, sauté brussel sprouts.
Dice 2 tomatoes and blend with the sprouts.
Season with sea salt, lemon pepper, and garlic pepper.
Dice 2 ounces of brie into the mixture.
Refrigerate overnight for flavors to mell.

Prepared before serving:
Boil pasta as directed. Drain pasta. Add to large olive oil cured skillet.
Add mixture created last evening.
Clean 3 leaves of kale. Roll and slice into shredded kale.
Add 3/4 of a jar of store bought tomato sauce to coat all the pasta ribbons.
Stir all ingredients in the skillet of a simmer.
Chop a 3rd fresh tomato and add to the mix.
When tomato and kale begins to appear well steamed dinner is ready.

The brie gave the dish a nice creamy tang that otherwise would have been missing. We were on vacation and my ingredients were limited. But I would love to try this with one of those new Philadelphia Cooking Creams. That would add nice flavor to this dish.

Quickly we decorated the back porch of the rental home with items we had brought along with us collected from The Christmas Tree Store and local dollar stores before arriving on vacation. The porch table had an umbrella in the middle. I took a dollar store shocking pink table cloth ($1) and draped it over half the table. With a scissor, I cut a slit from the edge of the cloth to the umbrella in the middle. Good old freezer tape curls taped the two haves of the slit together for a close to seamless look. At a local party stores clearance counter I had found 4 hibiscus table cloth clips ($2). The pink plates pictured were from the Christmas Tree Store ($1.99 for 4 plates). And we had multicolored martini glasses for our Koolaid and Rootbeer ($2.99 for 6). The kale I had purchased earlier in the week. I read a magazine article that suggests adding some to salads for more antioxidants. (Loving this!) Most of my spices, olive oil, and the pasta (this was vacation after all) came from an Ocean State Job Lot. With an on sale bottle of tomato sauce and a steamer bag of brussel sprouts I rounded out the meal on a very small budget. And yet everyone seemed rather pleased with the results.

If you try this and enjoy it, please let me know. If you try this and tweak the recipe some, I would love to hear of your additions.

More recaps of entertaining from the past to come. And of course future entertaining stories to come.