What We Ate Wednesday--Southern Pasta Salad

Hello lovelies! As it is getting towards summer and the weather is warming up, I thought I'd post an easy stove-top/no oven meal for all my friends in the Southern states who are already hot. We had a few days of high temps where all you wanted to do was wilt, but now it is warm here in the day and  cool in the evening. No doubt this meal will appear loads of times on our summer rotation when the temperatures rise as we have no air conditioning.

I posted this recipe back in 2013, but have tweaked it a bit and made it even better value for money.

The original recipe was a way to use up smoked turkey meat after a holiday, but since we don't eat our friends (at holidays or otherwise) I swapped the turkey out for some smoked tofu. As I said last week, smoked tofu is now out of budget for us, so I substitute mushrooms for "meatiness" and liquid smoke for well...smokiness (duh!) and it is just as good.

Southern Pasta Salad

1/3 cup sun dried tomatoes (not the oil packed kind)

1 ½ cups dry pasta of your choice (we use GF pasta made from corn and rice)

1.5-2 cups black eyed peas

6-7 button mushroom, diced small

½ cup frozen peas

1 white onion, thinly sliced into rings

1 red pepper, cut into strips

Dressing:

Mix together:

¼ cup tomato soaking water

1 TB tamari or soy sauce

2 TB apple cider vinegar

juice of one lime (1.5-2 TB of the bottled stuff)

1 tsp molasses (we prefer blackstrap as it is higher in iron)

½ tsp marmite (if you can get it--it just adds a savoury beefy quality)

½ tsp ground cumin

1 ½ tsp chilli powder

Pinch hot chilli flakes

1 tsp sriracha (or hot sauce of choice)

1 tsp liquid smoke

Agave or maple syrup to taste (I just squirt and taste until the balance of sweet and spicy and tangy is spot on)*these days both agave and maple syrup are out of price range, so i just use Lyle's Golden Syrup.*

2 tsp starch like cornflour (cornstarch to my American peeps) or arrowroot or tapioca *Whisk it in to the cold sauce at the end before you add it to the hot pot to avoid lumps.*

What to do:

1.Rehydrate the sun dried tomatoes in hot water-saving the soaking water for the sauce.

2. Start boiling water for pasta while you cook the onion and pepper in a little oil in another, larger pan.

3. Add pasta to boiling water. Add squeezed out sun dried tomatoes, mushrooms and black eyed peas to onion and pepper mixture in other pot.

4. When the pasta is nearly finished, add the frozen peas to the boiling water for the last few minutes.

5. Drain the pasta/peas and add to the black eyed pea mixture.

6. Pour over dressing and heat until the sauce thickens

 This is delicious hot but equally good cold on scorching days like today. It makes quite a bit so plan for cool leftovers the next day.