Tonight was Colton’s 30th birthday celebration. We dined outside on the back patio table. For Colton’s birthday dinner menu we noshed on burgers Kiki cooked on the grill, pasta salad, and potato salad. For dessert? Colton’s traditional birthday cookie-cake.
In our quest to start cooking healthy food, Kiki and I found this recipe in Cooking Light magazine. The recipe is courtesy Cooking Light reader Nancee Melin from Tuscon, Ariz.
ingredients.
- 14.5 oz whole grain pasta
- 2 ½ c. frozen shelled edamame
- 2 T. olive oil
- 1 T. butter
- 2 c. loosely packed arugula
- 1 c. grape tomatoes, halved
- ¼ c. chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
- ¼ c. fresh lemon juice
- 3 T. chopped fresh basil
- 1 T. chopped fresh thyme
- ½ tsp. kosher salt
- 2 oz. fresh Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, shaved or shredded
directions.
- Cook pasta according to package directions, and let cool.
- Heat oil and butter in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add edamame to the pan and cook 2 minutes (stirring occasionally) or until edamame is cooked thoroughly. Let cool.
- Combine pasta and edamame in a large bowl. Stir in arugula, tomatoes, parsley, lemon juice, basil, thyme, and salt. Toss well.
- Sprinkle with cheese.
First of all, let me just tell you that as nice as it is to eat fresh herbs in your food, it’s exactly the same amount in the opposite direction (if not more) not fun to cook with fresh herbs. They are hard to chop, especially thyme — which is particularly annoying to remove from its stem. That being said, the salad with all its delicious fresh herbs was pretty amazing and worth the extra effort to chop fresh herbs.
Out of laziness I added a bit more pasta (the entire box) and edamame (the entire bag) than the original recipe called for — almost double the amount of pasta and only half a cup of additional edamame. Despite that fact, the salad was huge. Four of us ate relatively large portions of the salad, and I would estimate there are at least four to six servings leftover.
When Kiki and I originally found this recipe, we were surprised at how many calories were in one (1 3/4 c.) serving: 477. We decided that steaming the edamame instead of cooking it in oil and butter would drastically reduce the calories and fat in the salad. Though the butter/oil mixture does add moisture to the dish. All in all, the salad was great and we would definitely make it again.
Recipe rating:
Food Snob 
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