Fourth of July pasta salad

Have you ever seen that 'Friends' episode where Monica and Phoebe plan a surprise party for Rachel, and Monica controls all the details, as usual, leaving Phoebe in charge of only cups and ice? And Phoebe, insulted that Monica leaves her with a seemingly meaningless task, goes way overboard with like five different types of cups and different kinds of ice (including dry ice)?

For our Fourth of July barbecue, I volunteered to bring either a salad or dessert. I figured I'd be assigned dessert, because I make desserts a lot. I got assigned salad. Salad! Who eats salad at a barbecue?

Well, I'm glad I got assigned the cups and ice salad because I discovered this incredible salad dressing/dip. The key ingredient is the slow-roasted tomatoes which I admit are time-consuming but well worth it.



Slow-roasted tomatoes
Halve grape or cherry tomatoes, place cut side up on a parchment-paper-lined baking sheet. Add a couple of cloves of garlic with skins still on and drizzle everything with a little olive oil (I mixed a little salt and pepper into the olive oil). Roast in the oven at 225 degrees for three hours, depending on the size of the tomatoes. Pretty darn good just out of the oven. These make a great addition to other dishes too, like pasta sauce, sauteed vegetables (like onions, squash and mushrooms with basil) or goat cheese on toast.


Roasted tomato sauce/dressing
After the tomatoes have cooled a little, take a half cup or so, the peeled garlic, a little warm water, a squeeze of lemon juice and puree. Add olive oil then some salt and pepper to taste. The result is heavenly. (I made another batch and am now eating with bread, like dip. It is sooo good.)


Pasta salad with arugula, olives and roasted tomatoes
I cooked about 2/3 of a bag of whole wheat pasta which I combined with the rest of the roasted tomatoes, a handful of halved olives and chopped basil. I set this and the dressing aside until the following morning, but that's just because I didn't want to wake up early to make the entire salad on the morning of the barbecue. So the day of, I added the sauce to the pasta then carefully tossed in shredded arugula. I wanted to add arugula because the pasta by itself as a salad seemed like it would be heavy, and I like having the contrasting crunch. I think some grated cheese would have been a lovely topping as well but I decided to forgo it as we would be outdoors in the sun and I wasn't sure how the cheese would hold up.


The only change I'd make with this salad would be to either make more dressing or less pasta. The pasta really absorbs the sauce so the intense flavor is not as obvious.

This recipe was inspired by:
sun-dried tomato pasta salad

while the dressing came from:
pearl couscous with olives and roasted tomatoes

and the roasted tomatoes came from:
slow-roasted tomatoes


Oh, and of course no barbecue could be complete without a hamburger (aka the normburger).

P.S. NL--those are NOT my hands in the above photos.