Pepperoni Pasta Salad

When I first married, my new mother-in-law said that she wanted to apologize for raising a spoiled son. I laughed, thinking that I had known Mark for over three years and didn’t consider him spoiled. Ummm, I was mistaken. He was spoiled in the fact that he had always lived at home. His mom did everything for him. He had no idea how to cook, do laundry, clean, keep a checkbook, or other grown-up responsible things a person should know before they live on their own.

Sadly, I must add that I continued his spoiling. Two years later, when our first child was born, our freezer was stocked with several weeks of meals so Mark could eat while I was in the hospital and the first few days at home. I thought that Mark might tire of frozen pizza. When I took a trip to help my sister after her open-heart surgery, I also left Mark with a fully stocked freezer of meals to heat up. He was so lucky that this new-fangled thing called a microwave had been invented. This being spoiled became really apparent to Mark when our son was two. The construction industry was slow in our area and Mark’s brother after graduation from college had just moved to California. He encouraged Mark to come out for the winter and work there.

My mother-in-law offered to drive out to California with Mark. She wanted to be able to visualize where her sons were when she talked with them on the phone. The few days she stayed with her sons, she spoiled them rotten again with her wonderful cooking. The first night after their mom flew home to North Dakota, Scott served Mark his first bachelor meal: Cottage Cheese and Peas. Mark decided at that exact moment that he needed to learn how to cook. He was more of a meat and potato kind of guy. He needs his protein to be a bit hardier than cottage cheese. Between the two brothers they started calling their mom and me to find out how to cook. They didn’t even know the basics of how to boil water and what it meant when the recipe said “brown hamburger”.

The brothers both being a bit competitive as brothers can be, they were soon learning to outdo each other in meal preparation. Now over 35 years later these guys can really cook. Plus they can really grill. If you do anything, you need to follow “Pinky’s Grill” on their blog. These two guys learned from the ground up and boy did they ever learn. As they teach you some of the very best grilling techniques that you will want to know, my sister-in-law and I will provide you some great recipes on the side to go with the grill items. Plus we will give you a bit of insight into who these brothers are.

You will get different food styles between Susan and I. She is more east coast with her cooking and I am Midwest in mine. My southwestern raised daughter in law says that we are sometimes “Norwegian Bland” so I have learned in the past few years to bring a bit more spice into my own cooking.

The first side recipe I want to share with you is for a simple pasta salad I will make tonight to go with Mark’s burgers on a grill. This is not only a good recipe, but it is so quick and easy. And it looks great on a plate next to the burger. I plan on getting this made early and then sitting down with a glass of wine while I watch Mark make the burgers.