Hello party food!! I put more thought and effort (and sweat—eww, gross, but true!) into the actual food for this party than I usually do. I’m talking about real food, other than the dessert stuff!! And when I say sweat, I mean it, because I spent a couple of hours over a hot stove top boiling pasta! It’s easy to make colored pasta, and I found 2 shapes that fit our party theme perfectly: scoobi doo (that’s what the package said!) and farfalle (bows).
When you are boiling the water for pasta, just add some food coloring to your salted water. I started with pink…some pink and some red food coloring….for the bows. I just boiled them for a bit more than the time that was on the package, so for about 14 minutes. The first batch was a light pink color. Instead of draining the pasta, I fished it out with a slotted spoon, so that I could save the water. I added more red food coloring to make a second batch of darker pink bow ties. When the pasta was cooked, I added just a bit of olive oil so the pasta wouldn’t stick together when it cooled off. I was pretty pleased with them!! I saved some little bows to top the round jam sandwiches that we served the girls, for a cute “hello kitty” look. I had wanted to cut out the sandwiches to look like hello kitty’s face, but don’t have a cutter for that!!
I made 2 batches of the scoobi do noodles (I’m sure they have another name, but I don’t know what it is!!) and made one orange and one yellow. These noodles really look like the lalaloopsy doll hair! I had thought of mixing this pasta in with the bows, that’s why I didn’t do any pink “hair” but didn’t end up doing that. I made 2 different pasta salads, one with a vinagrette dressing and veggies, and the other one with a creamy yoghurt dressing and cheese and ham. I thought that would kind of cover the bases….here are the recipes I used:Hello Bow Pasta Salad ingredients:
farfalle pasta (bow tie) colored 2 shades of pink
little cucumbers, sliced (the ones used for making pickles)
cherry tomatoes sliced in half
a bit of chopped parsley (optional)
Italian salad dressing
I’m not giving measurements, because it’s easy to guess, depending on how much salad you want to make. I didn’t need very much, so about 3 cucumbers and a handful of cherry tomatoes. I made extra bow ties for garnishes. Here’s the Italian dressing recipe I used, I found the recipe on Food.com here. I didn’t need very much for the salad, so I saved it and a few days later, used it as a marinade for some baked potato fries, good!!
Italian Dressing Recipe:
1/2 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons minced onions
1 tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon granulated garlic powder (I used less)
1/2 teaspoon dried basil leaves
3/4 teaspoon dried mustard
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano leaves
3/4 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 cup cider vinegar (or white wine vinegar)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Directions:
Combine all ingredients in blender and process 2 minutes. Don’t skip the blender and just stir it or shake it or it won’t be as good.
Chill at least 3 hours. It’s best if you make it a day ahead as it just gets better with age. Mix into your pasta salad a bit at a time.
For this next salad Ikind of followed the recipe for She Sells Seashells pastahere on Food.com.
Lalaloopsy Hair Pasta Salad:
ingredients:
2 colors of curly tube pasta
cubed mozzarella (I think cheddar would be better!)
diced honey ham
a few chopped green onions
For the dressing: (approximately)
6 ounces plain yogurt
4 ounces ranch dressing
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon honey
salt and pepper and dill to taste and a pinch of onion powder
Mix ingredients for dressing, add to pasta. Then stir in ham, cheese cubes and green onion.
I think this salad could have used a bit more dressing! I mean, I think I put too many noodles into it!
The salads turned out super-cute and quite tasty, I thought. I don’t usually make salads, it’s not really “my thing” so I don’t think I’m very good at it. The adults who tried the salads said they were good, the little girls……well, I wasn’t over-expecting!! Some of them tried the salads, and a few of them actually ate the salads….so there were leftovers for the next day…yay!! I forgot to get a shot of a pink plate full of salad and bow tie sandwiches, too cute! Oh well, the food matched the Lalaloopsy/ Hello Kitty theme quite well!
Oh, by the way, I got the idea for coloring the pasta from this cool blog article called The Lorax Dinner Makeover. I would love to add a cheesy sauce colored bright aqua to those colored pastas!! But I thought that that might be just a bit much for the little girl party guests!! 😉
