Keep your pasta salad locked down

I just made a really intense (ly delicious!) pasta salad. Considering that A. I made it while simultaneously watching American Idol, B. and having an inauguration dance party, and C. I made up the recipe in a state of post-gym disorientation* while in the grocery store, it is really a tasty homage to multitasking. And I simply must recommend it.

Ingredients
-Two chopped roasted yellow peppers
-One sliced zucchini sauteed in garlic and olive oil
-One chopped mango sauteed in garlic and olive oil
-One box of Farfalle pasta (you know, the pasta you can use to make gerbils look like they're sportin' formal wear... because they're tiny bowties you guys!) lightly coated with a few drops of lemon pepper marinade and vinegar
-Grape tomatoes for garnish

*Probably no one else is disoriented when they leave the gym. Just me? OK.

It must’ve been soup, but it’s over now

What is it about this muggy June day that makes me want to inhale hot liquids like a Hoover wet-vac? I’ve been fiendishly craving soup daily in spite of this Dirty Dancing II: Hot Havana Nights weather we’ve been having.

I know my fellow flogger Michelle disdains soup. But I think her concept of soup is a 79 cent dented can of Campbell’s chicken & stars. That salty gruel is actually delicious, too, in its own right. But it’s not a proper representation of what soup can really be in all its glory. (Trust me, cream of asparagus prepared by a chef trained at the Bel-Aire will make anyone start a murderous rampage of soupy joy.)

Confession time: When presented with two or more big stainless steel vats of soup, I become…. a soup mixer. Like 12-year-olds mix Mountain Dew and Orange Crush at the soda fountain, I mix seafood bisque and curried lentil.

Best decision of my life.