Purple and Green Salad with Pear and Gorgonzola dressing

Ever heard of planning your dinner over a salad dressing? This is precisely what has happened today. A trip to the local grocery store got me wandering in an aisle (as is usually the case) examining bottles and packages I had no need for. Never a salad- eater, I was literally lost in the sea of salad dressings, all the time thinking no wonder people love salads, with a million yummy dressings to choose from, who wouldn’t.

After a lot of internal deliberation as to whether the 4 dollars to be spent on what looked like a bottle of mushy oil with bits of cheese floating was warranted or not, my curiosity got the better of me. Soon enough I returned home with a bottle of “Pear and Gorgonzola” dressing.  Here goes the small list of some colorful veggies I put together, a bright absorbent for this very exotic salad dressing.  

Ingredients

Penne Pasta – half a cup

Water – 4 cups

Purple cabbage roughly chopped – 1 cup

Lettuce roughly chopped – 1 cup

Tomatoes chopped in big pieces – 2 large

Carrots cut in thick strips – 1 medium

Pear and Gorgonzola dressing – half a cup

Dry Parmesan cheese – for garnish (optional)

Olive oil – 1 tsp

Salt and pepper

Boil water and add salt, pepper and olive oil. Add in pasta and cook till tender. Drain and transfer to a salad bowl. Add the dressing while the pasta is warm, mix well and cover the bowl. Refrigerate for 2 hours. Add the cabbage, tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, some salt and pepper and mix again. This time around put it away in the fridge for half an hour. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese on top before serving.  I decided to skip the garnish as I had oodles of cheese waiting for me in the cauliflower au gratin tucked in the oven.

For those of you who want to make this dressing at home, it is really simple to put together like most dressings. And I definitely intend to, the next time around. All you will need is a can of pear halves, salt, pepper, 1 tsp of olive oil, 1 tsp vinegar, 2 tsp lemon juice and some crumbled gorgonzola cheese. Drain the pear and puree them with all the other ingredients in the food processor except for the cheese. Add the cheese once the dressing is smooth. Refrigerate to store for a couple of days. Till then, food and more food....