We no longer eat pork but this Smoked Ham & Veggies Pasta Salad is delicious with chicken, too!
The question I’ve been asked the most this week, amid record high temperatures, is “What can I cook for supper that won’t heat up the kitchen?”. So I whipped up one of my favorite pasta salads to post for ya real quick. This one is filled with smoked ham (the smoked part is important), tomatoes, cucumbers, English peas (I guess that means they talk with a British accent), cheese, and bow tie pasta. It’s all tied together with a creamy dressing.
I’ll show you how I made this in a minute and you’ll have plenty of time to whip it up for supper tonight, but first I wanted to go back to the subject of this heat wave.
I know it’s hot. I’ve been outside pretty frequently, walking on the crunchy brown grass and watching the temperatures climb indoors as the air conditioner loses the battle to keep up. Yes, it’s hot.
Still, I can’t help but be grateful in the middle of this heat. In fact, the heat reminds me to be grateful for a great many things. I thought I’d talk about a few of them today in hopes that you’ll help me expand the list by joining the conversation in the comments section below. Remember, there is always something to be grateful for!
My top things to be grateful for in this heat:
Air conditioning – In many parts of the country this is still not a common thing to have. In Alabama, you better believe it is! If you think it’s hot now, try living here fifty years ago when we didn’t have air conditioning. Our ancestors are up in heaven now just a rolling their eyes.
Water – over 884 MILLION people do not have access to clean water. Eight Hundred Eighty Four MILLION. That is nearly three times the entire population of the United States! We can walk to our kitchen sink. Seriously. That in and of itself is a luxury to a great number of the world’s population. We have that, and ice cubes to top it off. Talk about embarrassment of riches.
A home – No matter how big or small your home is, you are blessed to have a home. As you read this there are families literally wandering in a desert, who would give all they had for a shelter the size of your bathroom. Perspective is everything.
Luxuries – Television, internet, computer, etc. If you’re reading this, you most likely have all three. Based on that I can go out on a limb and assume you have food on the table (most people wouldn’t forego food in order to pay for internet access). These make you among some of the wealthiest people in the world. Feeling rich yet? Well if you’re reading this, billions of people consider you to be. How do these luxuries relate to the heat? Distractions and things to do indoors. Plus, it also means you’re not out picking cotton. Back in the day, THOSE people knew about heat, just ask my Grandmother.
These are just the basics but they are a great start to finding gratitude in the heat. I’d love for you to add to my list of things the heat reminds you to be grateful for in the comments section.
Also, if you are looking for more recipes that don’t require your oven, stay tuned to your inboxes later today because I’ll be sending out my latest newsletter filled with recipes and ideas for meals that won’t heat up your house. I send it out every week and all you have to do to receive it is subscribe by email by clicking here. No one will ever see your email address but me and I generally send 2-4 emails per week. If you don’t sign up in time to get today’s newsletter, you’ll get next weeks, which is almost just as good 🙂 Just click it and sign up real quick and I’ll try to put off sending it until late afternoon or early evening. If you’d like to see an example of a newsletter, click here to view one in pdf. Please note that the links are not clickable in the example but will be in your email 🙂
Let’s make supper. Or lunch..or mid day snack…
You’ll need: Bowtie pasta, shredded cheddar, grape tomatoes, frozen peas, bell pepper, cucumber, ranch dressing, green onions and some smoked ham*.
These are just my ingredients. Feel free to alter the recipe to use up what you have on hand or to suit your personal tastes. If it doesn’t suit your family’s tastes, don’t fret because they’re not the ones making this ~grins~. It’s good to be the cook!
*Whenever I need smoked ham for a quick recipe, I just go to the deli counter and ask for a single slice that is about 1/2 inch thick. That is the perfect size for dicing up and using in recipes. The smoked ham adds a wonderful flavor to this meal.
Note: you don’t need to cook the peas, just let them thaw a bit while you prepare this and they’ll be fine.
Dice up your ham in nice bite sized pieces or smaller.
I just cut it until I’m tired of cutting it and then declare that how it is cut is how it is supposed to be.
It’s good to be King Mom.
Peel and chop up cucumber….
Chop up your bell pepper
After your pasta is cooked, drain it in a colander and run cold water over it while you stir it to stop the cooking process and cool it down so you don’t have to wait as long to eat your salad 🙂 Gotta keep our priorities straight here.
Combine everything in a big ol’ bowl.
This is a rare yellow Amish Butterprint Cinderella Bowl by Pyrex. If you’ll notice, each handle is a different size. They are designed to be spouts to allow for easier pouring from the bowl. One is larger and one smaller. A lot of the Pyrex patterns were offered in regular bowls and Cinderella bowls. Cinderella means it has the spouts on it 🙂
Add in your dressing.
Stir it up really good. Cover and refrigerate until chilled and ready to serve.
If you’re hungry, eat some now and I won’t tell.
Dig in!
(and be grateful)
Ingredients
- 1 pound box bowtie pasta
- 1-2 cups smoked ham diced
- 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
- 1 cup frozen peas thawed slightly
- 1 large cucumber peeled and chopped
- 1/2 bell pepper diced
- 1-2 cups grape tomatoes
- 1 Cup Buttermilk Ranch Dressing
Instructions
- Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain in colander and pour running cold water over pasta, while stirring, until completely cooled. Allow to drain fully before pouring in large bowl.
- Add all other ingredients and stir until well combined.
- Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve. Keeps well for three days in refrigerator.
In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.
Brother David Steindl-Rast
What are you grateful for in this heat?
Click here to follow me on Instagram
Yum 
I second you on the water! Try completing one small outdoor activity and forgetting your water bottle. You will realize how quickly we take water for granted. It seems so insignificant, but it is so vital to life! Love your recipes, your posts, and your grateful spirit!
Amen Hayley! We’re pretty spoiled, and pretty blessed to be able to be so spoiled 🙂 But it wouldn’t hurt to think about what life would be like if we didn’t have all of these wonderful blessings. That sure would turn down the complaint knob! Love YOU!! Thank you Hayley!
Gratefully,
Christy
This is a great recipe. I live alone and don’t want to cook a 7 course meal so this is perfect.
I’m in south Alabama so I FEEL YOUR PAIN! When I get too hot I walk outside and then I”m loving my a/c all over again. My family loves loves loves this pasta, we make it with chicken sometimes instead of ham. One thing I’ve learned is we much prefer it if the dressing isn’t from a bottle. I buy the big thing of ranch dressing and make it up and immediately add it, don’t know why but it’s even more yummy. Love your blog! 🙂
I am grateful for my family, and the fact that where (& when) we live, I can expect all four of my children to reach adulthood. That isn’t always the case in other times and places!
Goodness I was so busy typing I left out what I’m thankful for – my family!!! And my air conditioner. In that order (right now anyway)
I’m thankful that I can remember picking cotton and i’m still alive…salad sound yummy. Thanks for reminding us to stop complaining about how hot it is and to remember to give thanks. Sometimes we forget….
I am thankful for all of our health. So many people are in hospitals or in chronic pain every day. I thank God that me, my husband and all my boys are full of health!!!!
You won’t believe the timing of your comments! I am in the process of reading Debbie Macomber’s book”One Simple Act”. In it she talks about gratitude-and how first having gratitude can make you more giving. She suggests writing 5 things down each day you are grateful for. I plan on starting my grateful journal on July 1st!
I am thankful for lemonade. Growing up, we used what we had on the farm and that did not include lemons. When my mom bought lemons and made lemonade, that was a real treat! My 26 year old son now makes lemonade for us because Grandma taught him how…lol. I’m glad he had a grandma who loved him enough to take the time.
Hi Christy, just found your site and I’m now a subscriber! Sure enjoyed reading all about you and your family, as well as scanning through all the delicious looking and sounding recipes you have posted! I’m a Southerner also – actually – a 6th generation Florida Cracker. Thank you for your great website! You now have another devoted follower.
Welcome to the Southern Plate family, Diann!
Hey! I just got done eating a great pasta ham and pea dish that my daughter made me for my lunch today! She used pasta – cream and parmesean cheese – put ham and peas in it. It was really great! I’m thankful that I have such a sweet family and that my daughter made sure I had a great lunch today! I’m also so grateful to live in such a blessed country where we have ham, peas, pasta etc along with air conditioning – cars – houses – there are not enough spaces to list everything we/I have to be grateful for! Thanks for your sweet posts as well (I’m grateful for those – as they make me smile!)
Take care! Cindy
I love your list and would like to add friends who remind you to be grateful for our blessings as opposed to being a contagious complainer. You are that my friend!! Thank you for reminding and encouraging me to be grateful for my many blessings and not complain about the 100+ degree weather we are having in North Texas right now.
Yum. My mouth is watering again. I’m thankful for Mosquitoes. Yes!! It lets me know all my parts are working while i’m swattin’ and can feel the bite. uuumm sorry…
This looks so yummy! Got to give it a try some time! And, you are so correct in all those things you talked about being grateful for. So many people do not have those things. And, don’t forget the animals either who are suffering in this heat. 🙁
Oh and I’m awful grateful for your website !
I am most grateful for the Blessings of Life. God is so good to all of us. I think my gratefulness falls short so much of the time. TODAY, I am Thankful for Family and Friends, Shelter, Food & Water and Good Health. Bless you Christy Jordan and your family. Praying for the wonderful people of Colorado that are going through sooo much at this time.
I live in the panhandle of Texas and it has been a scorcher lately, but we had some blessed rain before the heat began! I have neighbors all around me who have loved ones in hospice and I’m thankful for my family’s health. I’m thankful for good jobs for my husband and my self ( he is a contractor and I just finished my 33rd year teaching) and for both of my sons – so many folks are out of work – we are blessed. Christy, I have been getting your email for about 6 months now, and I so enjoy your recipes and your down-to-earth take on life, very refreshing – thank you for sharing!!
I am thankful to the lord that he has given me another day to share my love and time with the peoplee who i will meet in my journey this day. hope fully they will feel his presents in something i might say or do. Be it my family or friends or the stranger that i meet. I am also grateful that i have found your site not only for the reciipes that you share so kindlly,but also your wisdom in words. Thank you Moira
Very thoughtful post. Thank you! Far too often we take these luxuries for granted, and I’m thankful to be able to take them for granted. I’m also thankful for my car. Here in Texas you can’t go very far without one. Bigger cities, like Dallas or Houston, have public transportation, but out here in the boonies we rely on our trusty metal steeds to get us to all the places we need to be.
Your pasta salad looks delicious! I think I’m going to make one this weekend. And, I swear, one of these days I’m going to send you a good cutting board. I cringe every time I see you’ve cut up meat and veggies on one of your plates. Granted, it won’t hurt the plate, but it’s a good way to dull your knives. A dull knife is a dangerous knife. 🙂
We are indeed so blessed. I make my pasta salad like this too except I add in some of those bagged carrot sticks. Love the crunch of those in there too. And some chopped celery. I also like to change up the flavor a bit and use some Kens Steak House Sweet Vidalia Onion Dressing. Yummy…I could eat this every day.
Doesn’t have to be ancestors that roll their eyes, I often do that, I grew up in Texas & graduated high school in 1965. Most, if not all, of my school years we did not have air conditioning, we had a water fan, if any of you are old enough to remember those. Better than a plain fan but made every thing within 20 feet kinda damp…and you had to almost sit right in front to actually be cool. My, how things have changed since then. I don’t think I could make it without air conditioning now in Texas, it was 106 earlier this week, we used to work in the field chopping cotton and later pulling cotton, I know I could not do that now. I am ever so grateful to have a nice home that is cool in the summer and warm in the winter! God is good!
Can’t wait to try this pasta salad, having a friend over tomorrow, this may be our lunch! Thanks so much!
We tend to have a greedy attitude in the USA. I think it is good to stop and consider even the poorest here are wealthy in comparison to most of the world.
I am thankful for all God has given me and continues to pour out his blessings on me. I am grateful I can even Thank God out loud and in public with out risking death. I praise him for my home family and health.
I love your recipes and I am thankful for your wonderful heart.
Christy, for the last few years with things changing (and not always for the better) economically, so we try to remind ourselves to…
Have some gratitude with our attitude -)
It’s ok to be upset with setbacks and such, but as you say…remember our blessings in spite our of difficulties.
Christy, I cannot wait to try this. I absolutely adore pasta salad. since I am not able to cook very often this will be perfect for me. You sure can eat it with your eyes also. A plus on this one also. I live here in MS and it is hot also. My AC went out in my bedroom and its rough but thankfully I get enough air by leaving my bedroom door open. Just not what I need for my disease but praise God for helping me through this ordeal. I lost my home when my husband passed almost five years ago and thank my middle son for taking me in. God is good and I thank him for giving us Christy Jordan. Have a great day.
Remember as a child where the heat did not bother you at all? Play outside all day, come in at supper time for some sweet tea all covered in dirt? No air conditioning, just a window fan. And we are talking the 1960s in rural TN. My grandsons have no idea, heck, my kids have no idea….
Christy, not only do you give us great recipes, but great perspective as well. You are an inspiration to me and I appreciate you for the recipes, but most importantly the perspective and the good advice. God bless you.
Sounds good, but will have to figure out some substitutes, I like cucumbers but they don’t like me. And husband won’t touch bell peppers if he can see they are in there. Definitely grateful for my family and my health. We have had several friends battling Cancer lately. Some winning for which I am also grateful!
Grateful 1st for My Savior, water, a/c and this may not seem like much to people today but ice maker, hot water heater. Remember when we had to heat water, fill up ice trays, did laundry outside even in winter, had to build fires under big wash pots. Thankful that I live now, in this modernized world.
I am grateful for a wonderful husband who has given me a wonderful life.
Air conditioning, my family and my church. Your recipes so that I can whip up something good and quick!