Salad days

The epic cooking event for Master Six yesterday included a couple of salads.  My children make a lot of salads, but usually they are more free stylin', which suits children as they are always proud of their own creations.  Being constrained (somewhat) by a recipe is quite a different way of cooking.  I figure however, as Master Six can read, he should have a go now and then at doing exactly that. 

Pasta and Egg Salad

250g spiral pasta (I'm still contented with the high fibre version)
2 sticks celery, finely chopped
1/2 small red capsicum
1/2 small yellow capsicum
4 spring onions, finely chopped
small handful parsley leaves, chopped
2/3 cup mayonnaise (we went with half 'real' mayo and half low fat)
3 tsp wholegrain mustard
2 tbsp lemon juice (or to taste, originally it was 1 tbsp, but the extra worked for us)
salt to taste
black pepper to taste
5 hard boiled eggs, cut into quarters and each quarter cut into 3

Cook pasta just short of suggested cooking time on packet by about a minute, throw in a cup of cold water, and drain immediately.  Set aside to cool.

Combine pasta, celery, red and yellow capsicum, spring onions and parsley in a large bowl.

In a smaller bowl combine the mayonnaise, mustard, juice, salt and pepper together, whisking well*.

Pour over the pasta and stir together gently.

Finally add the chopped egg, and stir again, gently, until it's all combined.

Serves 6
Ideal with leftover Christmas ham or turkey or perfect as a barbie side.

*Have to be honest here, if it were me, making it, I'd just toss the lot into a bowl (aside from the eggs) and mix it all together, but whisking is too much fun for a child to miss out! 

It looks like an enormous amount of mayo, but it all gets sucked into the pasta.

I like that this recipe gives me a hit of pasta at a 'normal' quantity.  Half a packet (between the five of us) is reasonable, certainly much better than the whole packet I used to serve. 

Celery is not the most popular vegetable in this house, but there are just some dishes that you feel it really does work - like fried rice.  This is one such dish, nobody minds that there is celery in it, the crunch, and the flavour are perfect fits here. 

This was one of two salads we enjoyed this night, the other being a leafier, lighter dish.  Master Six did a fine job of sticking to the recipe while being aware to taste and adjust in need.  His only alteration to the original Taste.com.au version was to decide there should be an egg for each person (so 5 instead of 4) and, after tasting, thinking the dressing needed more lemon juice..that's my boy!

Having enough salad leftover for Daddy to take to work the next day, you could just see Master Six's eyes light up as his father eagerly packed his lunchbox with pasta.  It's these moments you know, the ones that don't immediately seem significant but if you look closer you can see something special has just happened.  I think that will be one of 'those' memories for our Beautiful Boy.