Do you remember last spring when I took a fresh look at a typical pasta salad recipe? Well, I've been making a fall/winter version lately - plump raviolis tossed with toasted hazelnuts, sauteed ribbons of chard, and caramelized onions. The colorful platter is finished off with a dusting of cheese, snipped chives, and lemon zest. You can prepare most of the components ahead of time, and throw it together in less than five minutes when you are ready to serve it up family-style.

If you read my other pasta salad recipe post, you know that I like the idea behind pasta salad, but think they are out of balance, and more times than not - uninspired. That being said, with a bit of tweaking I think the pasta salad can continue its reign as one of the most potluck and party-friendly plates imaginable Italian landscapes.

A bit about today's recipe. As I mentioned above, pasta salads are great for entertaining for a few reasons - they keep nicely, you can do them ahead of time, and everyone likes them well enough. The version I did up above is hearty and substantial enough to satisfy mixed crowds of vegetarian and non-vegetarians - you can easily make a vegan version if need be. With a bit of planning it is also low-maintenance, I don't like to be in a flurry of cooking when I have friends over, so I try to come up with food that requires minimal attention from me once the doorbell starts ringing home improvement.

The day ahead I roast the hazelnuts, wash and cut the chard, caramelize the onions, and brown the butternut squash - I suspect I could even get away with pre-cooking the raviolis at the same time (see recipe headnotes). When I'm ready to serve the pasta salad the next day I toss everything together (strategically) in a big, hot skillet and plate it on a large platter. I threw this together the other night when my wine club came over and liked it enough to make it again as a side dish / vegetarian main dish on Thanksgiving. Hope you like it as much as I did Funeral flowers .


Before I sign off, I wanted to share a couple photos with you. Many of you leave nice comments each time I feature a plate or cup or saucer from my mom's collection. She has been nice enough to lend me the occasional item for photo shoots hover the years. I took a few shots of some of my favorite items when I was visiting this weekend - there are stories and people behind many of these items - and I look forward to sharing those details at some point in the future.