This weekend I went camping at Hanna Park, a local campground on the beach near my house.  Despite the 100 degree weather, it was a fun time!  It included all my favorite things- going to the beach, riding bikes and making good food!  Plus, my pup Lumen loved every minute of exploring the wild!

I didn’t go all out with the food this weekend, but I did make a Pesto Pasta Salad that got better and better as the days went by.  I even had it for lunch today, and it was still yummy at three days old!  The more days the pesto marinates on the pasta, the better tasting it is.  It was great the first night with hot dogs, and the second night with chicken skewers as well!  (You can see I took a vacation from cooking this weekend and let Publix and Oscar Myer do the work…)  The original recipe can be found here.

In addition to the pesto pasta, we had to make smores.  I’d never actually eaten smores, so it was a treat for me.  (I know… how did that happen?)  Mine were far from perfect, but tasted amazing.  I guess it’s hard to go wrong with the perfect combination of graham cracker, marshmallow and chocolate…

Pesto Pasta Salad gets better with time!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup prepared pesto (I doubled this recipe and froze the second cup to use another day!)
• 1 1/2 lbs. shell pasta
• 1 cup plain yogurt
• 2 Tbs. lemon juice
• 1/2 cup mayo
• 1/2 cup Parmesan
• 1 bag (16 oz) frozen peas
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Prepare pasta according to package directions.

In a separate bowl, combine the rest of the ingredients except the Parmesan and peas.  Once pasta has cooled, stir in the pesto mixture.  Then add the Parmesan and peas.  Stir again.  This will keep for days, and tastes best on the second day!

Setting up camp with Lumen!

It’s not pretty, but it is delicious. Gimme smore!