A summer salad for friends

Gene is gone to a motorcycle rally this week to show off the electric motorcycle he has his partner have been developing.  Gene hasn't seen it in person yet so he's pretty stoked. 

This is make-or-break time for the company, as both of the partners have taken a year off to make this happen.  Keep your fingers crossed for us, please!

Follow their progress and see more pics of the bike at the facebook page.

With Kaelen going to bed around 6, it was looking to be a lonely few days until I decided to extend invitations to friends to join me for dinners.  Not only would their company provide us the chance to catch up, it also give me a reason to make real meals.

Then the weather forecast came:

It's going to be hot.  Being a true native of Western Washington, we don't have air-conditioning.  I love cooking... until it's 90 degrees.

Bleh. 

My girlfriend who's coming tonight requested pasta.  Given today's high of nearly 90, that seemed really heavy and not worth heating up the house.  My other friend who's joining us - after I bailed on going to see tractors with her because I'm a heat wimp - is a vegetarian.  A pasta salad seemed the perfect compromise.

A quick internet search and BOOM I'm on one of my favorite pages: Smitten Kitchen.   Summer pea and roasted red pepper salad?  Oh yeah!  Deb never lets me down. 

I had a jar of pickled red peppers languishing in my canning cupboard.  I made it... well, let's just say a while back... and then didn't know what to do with it.  Here was my answer.  I tossed all this with some feta and a generous helping of freshly ground black pepper.  It is going to hit just the right combination of sweet, tangy, peppery, pea-y, salty, and cold.  A chilled, dry rose and we'll all be kicking up our feet in the backyard and enjoying a hot summer evening among friends.

You can find the recipe here.