Liven up your Labour Day menu with this fun vintage pasta salad recipe

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Labour Day falls early this year - the earliest date it can in fact, September 1st, and as such that means that this weekend is the last before the unofficial end of summer. Soon life will become a joyful hustle and bustle of school books, raking crunchy leaves, baking pumpkin pies, nights that get dark nearly as soon as work as wrapped up, and the switching over of our warm weather wardrobes to our winter ones (or vice versa if you live south of the equator and gearing up to say hello to spring once more). And you know what, a good part of me really and truly looks forward to that, but for now I'm very keen to continue celebrating summer (as I talked in greater detail about in this month's edition of Flickr Favourites) and soak up every last precious, golden sun-kissed moment of it while I still can.



{Instead of viewing Labour Day long weekend as the beginning of the end of summer, I prefer to see it as one last big celebration of all that is great, food very much included, about this fun filled, vibrant, awesome season.Image source.}


This sentiment definitely extends to my menu choices, especially since the Labour Day long weekend has always been one of the most revered on the barbeque and al fresco meal front of the whole season. There's hefty ears of sweet corn, plump ruby red tomatoes, scores of crisp garden greens, early season apples and pears, freshly caught fish, homemade ice cream, and gallons of lemonade still to consume before we don our Thanksgiving finery and tuck into a squarely autumn harvest centered feast once more.

Undoubtedly one of my favourite warm weather eats of all time is pasta salad! I have a dozen or more favourite recipes that I enjoy whipping up as the mood and menu call for, and am certainly not opposed to trying new ones or simply tossing something together on the fly based on what I have in the fridge and pantry at any given moment. It's precisely that kind of spirit which I feel today's vintage pasta salad recipe that originally appeared in a Good Housekeeping magazine ad for Somerset Luncheon Meats channels. It has a little of this, a little of that, and a whole lot of mid-century mealtime fun.




{A tasty hodgepodge of mid-century ingredients comes together in this cheerful, filling 1950s pasta salad recipe, that is sure to find favour with kids and adults alike at your long weekend dinner table. Image source.}


Now, by all means, feel free to forgo or swap out anything that not to your liking. If you're a gluten-free eater like myself and are keen to still use rainbow pasta here, I highly recommend Rizopia's Vegetable Brown Rice Fusilli (which I've found here in Canada at Bulk Barn and online on Well.ca), which I'm rarely without a bag of in my cupboard for pasta salads just like this. For the mayonnaise, needing to avoid eggs all the time, too, due to the fact that I'm allergic to them, I reach for Reduced Fat Vegenaise (which also happens to be vegan).

Pasta salads are one of the most versatile, crowd pleasing foods around. You can serve them cold, at room temperature or even warm, just depending on what your star ingredients are. They often taste even better the second day after their flavours have been mingling and snuggling up together for a while, and they can be either the main attraction of the meal or simply a lovely, filling side dish.

If you have leftovers, why not stir in some cooked chicken breast, salmon, strips of steak, further vegetables, or cubes of cheese and extend it for a second meal the next day? They can also be stuffed into pitas, wraps, or buns, as well as scooped up onto corn chips, potato chips, melba toast, or wedges of cornbread - all of which children in particular are fond of.

Let your imagination run wild when it comes not only to creating pasta salads, but also with your Labour Day meal choices in general. Take advantage of summer's incredible eats while they're still here, have a second (or third) helping of sweet, juicy watermelon, toss some more burgers on the grill, and relish (food pun intended) the tail end of awesome quarter of the year while it's still going strong.

Fondly reminiscing about Labour Days past

✯ Day 248 of Vintage 365 ✯

 

Though nowadays the school year sometimes starts on other dates across towns and cities in North America, traditionally - and still to this day for many - Labour Day marked the last day of summer vacation, the very next morning ushering a return to classrooms everywhere.

It was a bittersweet day, as I recall. On the one hand you were crushed to see the weeks of summer fun come barrelling to an end, in no way ever fully ready to delve back into another ten month stretch of books, homework, teachers, and student life, yet on the other, part of you knew deep down inside that you needed to buck up and face the next leg of your future.

I remember many of my childhood Labour Days with startlingly detail - perhaps because as the hours of each ticked past, I tried my hardest to make them seem as though they'd stretch on until the end of time. Obviously though, such was never the case, and come the very next morning it - the brand-spanking new school year - began anew.

Truthfully, sad as I was to leave behind summer, I rarely minded returning to school. I enjoyed my academic days a lot and always liked the serge of excitement and possibility that the fresh school year held in its grasp.

Labour day always meant that there was new clothing (often the first since the prior school year began) to be laid out, golden yellow number two pencils to sharpen, notebooks to neatly write your name inside, shoes to shine, lunches to make, and a night of sleepless anticipation ahead.

{Vintage first day of school photo of a cute little girl in 1953. I remember posing in much the same way in front of my elementary school for my mother when I was little, too. Image via Ireed76 on Flickr.}

The next morning, butterflies swarming in my stomach, awake ages before the alarm went off, I'd get ready quickly, triple check that I had all of my school supplies, head downstairs for a quick breakfast, then open the front down and take a deep breath of the first day of the unofficial end of summer (after all, the start of a new school year really was the clincher when it came to summer's demise for any school aged youngster).

Yes, summer was as good as over, but there was so, so much possibility looming on the horizon. So with a blend of nerves and excitement, I'd take up my packsack laden with new supplies and walk to school, find my name printed on a sheet tapped to one of the windows (that being how kids at my elementary school knew which classroom they were destined for), wait for the morning bell, slide into a fresh desk and smile, ready for another intriguing year of learning.

Though my school days are long behind me now, it's still impossible for Labour Day to pass by without a hint of all those same childhood emotions rearing up, a pleasant reminder of every first day of school I ever had - and the fresh start that September always promised.