Jacki’s Review of Bowties with Tuna and Beet-Arugula Salad.

Tonight I prepared “the meal” as it is known around our house.  I really liked both the pasta dish and the salad but Rich was a little unsure.  He said he didn’t really like to “chase his food around the plate”. I guess the pasta was a little slippery.   He did suggest some cheese might help and I agree that a good sprinkling of parmesan cheese would be a nice addition.  We both agreed the tuna was excellent.  I thought the dish had a really good flavor – I prefer it over a traditional tuna noodle casserole which I am not a big fan of.  I followed the recipe pretty much as directed with a couple of minor changes.  I used center cut bacon instead of pancetta and artichoke quarters in water (drained) since that is what I had.  I bought a couple of nice yellowfin ahi tuna steaks which were very good.  It had a much fresher taste than canned tuna.  I thought the dish was easy to prepare.  I didn’t use a whole pound of the pasta and next time I would use even less than I used so I could have artichoke and tuna in every bite.  I would probably only use 1/2 a pound instead of a whole pound.  As for the salad – I used a combination baby lettuce package which had arugula in it.  I really liked the flavor combination of the lettuces with the beets and mandarin oranges.  I used a bottled blue cheese dressing that we had on hand because I forgot to buy the buttermilk and I wasn’t sure that the ol vinegar in the milk trick would work very well with this recipe.  I thought the meal made for a beautiful presentation and was light and tasty, just as a spring time meal should be.

Don’t these beautiful pics make you want to cook these recipes up right now?!  Yummm!