Vegetable Pasta Salad

Welcome back! Hope you had a great weekend and are having a good start of the week. I had a great weekend, but busy. I catered a 90th birthday for about 200 people, so was very busy. For the party I made a vegetable pasta salad. I have had several people come in today saying how much they enjoyed the pasta salad. So I am going to share that recipe today.

You can use your favorite raw vegetables. The ones that I use are: broccoli florets, cauliflower florets, thinly sliced celery, grated carrots, sliced radishes, diced onions, sliced green pepper and sometimes I add sliced black olives.

Vegetable Pasta Salad

1# rainbow rotoni
2 cups mixed raw vegetables, washed and prepared
Pasta Salad Dressing

Cook rotoni according to package. Rinse under cold water and drain well. Put cooked rotoni and raw vegetables into a large bowl. Add dressing and mix well. Chill overnight.

Pasta Salad Dressing
3 cups mayonnaise
2/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup vinegar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
3 teaspoons granulated garlic
1-1/2 teaspoons each dried whole oregano and whole basil
Mix well.

Meatloaf

I hope you were able to try the Pumpkin Bread Pudding. Send me your comments.

Today I am going to give you a recipe for meatloaf. You can make any amount that you want with this formula - 1# to 100#. For each pound of hamburger, ground turkey or venison you will need 1 large egg, 1/4 cup milk, 1/3 of a sleeve of saltine crackers-crushed, 1 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon ground pepper and 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce. For the topping you will need 1/4 cup ketsup and 1/4 cup brown sugar.

In a mixing bowl, mix the egg, milk, crushed saltine crackers, salt, pepper and Worcestershire sauce. Mix well. Add the hamburger and mix well. Put mixture into a loaf pan and shape. Mix the ketsup and brown sugar and spread on top of meatloaf. Bake at 350 degrees until thermometer inserted in center reaches 180 degrees for well done. (Time for cooking will vary depending on the amount of hamburger used.) Let stand for 5 to 10 minutes before slicing.

Serving suggestions: Thick slice of meatloaf served with mashed potatoes and gravy, buttered corn and a roll.

Pumpkin Bread Pudding

Welcome to my blog of restaurant recipes. This is Beth and I have been in the restaurant business for over 30 years and have developed many recipes. I own a small coffee-sandwich shop. In this blog I will be posting some of my recipes. I will size them down to family size so you will not have large quantities.

I will be posting recipes for salads, salads dressings, main dishes, panani sandwiches, desserts, pies, sides dishes, etc.

Today's recipe is for Pumpkin Bread Pudding. Even if you don't like bread pudding, give this one a try. I don't like bread pudding, but this one is different. Serve it warm with whipped cream and it is mighty tasty. You can serve this for Thanksgiving or Christmas in place of pumpkin pie.

Pumpkin Bread Pudding

2 cups milk (or better, 1/2+1/2)
1 can (15 oz.) pure pumpkin
1 cup brown sugar, packed
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
or 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon each nutmeg, ginger and cloves
1-1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1-1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
10 cups white bread in 1/2" cubes
1/2 cup golden raisins
Caramel ice cream topping
Whipped cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk milk, pumpkin, brown sugar, eggs, spices and vanilla in a large bowl to blend. Fold in bread cubes. Stir in golden raisins. Put mixture into a 11x7" pan. Pat down mixture. Bake pumpkin bread pudding until tester inserted in center comes out clean, about 40 minutes.
Yield: 6 servings

To serve, drizzle caramel ice cream topping over warm pumpkin bread pudding, top with whipped cream. Enjoy!