Balsamic Pasta Salad

Here be garlic. And crunchy vegetables. And....

2 lbs of dry rotini pasta
1 red bell pepper, seeded and finely diced
1 green bell pepper, seeded and finely diced
3 ribs celery thinly sliced on the bias
1 large red onion peeled, halved, and sliced into thin crescents.
4-6 cloves of garlic, diced then reduced to paste
1-1/2 cups of finely diced country ham ( leave out for vegans )
1/2 cup black olive slices
1-1/2 cups of frozen green peas, lightly rinsed to separate.
1 cup balsamic dijon vinaigrette

Cook rotini in ample salted water ( using iodized salt imparts a slight bitter taste, I use kosher salt for these applications ). Drain, cool in cold water, drain again thoroughly. Combine with the other ingredients in a large serving bowl. Refrigerate 2 hours, better if overnight to let the garlic mellow.

Comments

Closing a chapter.

My last post was so full of darkness, I hate to follow on with another sad article. Life does not always allow for happy moments interspersing the less happy. For countless years ( honestly, I can't count this time in the morning ) I have been engaged in a hobby project writing a fairly massive software library of routines for use in adventure and combat simulations I call Zulu. When I started the project way back whenever I did weeks of research trying to determine the " best " game engine to use. Factors like ease of use, rendering quality, support, and cost all were gathered, then ground in the number-cruncher to determine a winner. In the end, Unity3d was the clear winner. In the last two weeks Unity announced a series of changes to its Terms and Conditions including how it charges for applications built using Unity that put a huge burden on developers, especially the smaller groups. Th...

Just a country kid.

I've done a bunch of things in my life. Was one of those smart kids in school. A hard-core bookworm with emphasis on the sciences. Got a Bachelor of Science degree. Worked as a chef. Wore a few stripes working for Uncle Sam. Then spent close to 25 years in California working at a nuclear weapons research facility. Retired. Now a tutor, a mentor, and writing software when I have time. I'll always be a kid from the country. My parent's home is on a large hill. There were farms all around us, alfalfa fields bordering us to the south, west and east. Every season was special, but summer had one activity that was so routine back then and now you rarely encounter. In the shade of a covered porch, my dad and I would sit in our favorite chairs. Some iced tea, lemonade, beer, or a soda along with a cooling breeze made even the muggy days feel nice. We even enjoyed watching the occasional T-storm from that porch - the lightning bolts making quite a show from our dry and safe locat...

A quiet voice from some distant corner.

It's been a while since my last post. For a number of reasons I had gone to ground. Taking shelter for a moment. First among those reasons is the increasingly intolerant attitude held by those who lean toward the Left, both those in government and individuals I happen to know. Say or do something that they don't like and they'll bury you with accusations of being a White Supremacist, a Fascist, or more specifically a Nazi. Name-calling is hurtful enough even when it's not true, but now a number of these folks are using insidious ways along with those labels to create far worse things. Like doxing, throwing a red-flag - claiming you're going to shoot up some place ( never!! ), triggering a law enforcement investigation, or tainting your online reputation records. Some will defend those activities with the religious zeal of witch hunters while others will bizarrely claim they were "just having fun". You have to worry not just about yourself, but your family...

Porchside Musings.

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