Cucumber and Dill Pasta Salad

I really hope you can all forgive me for my lack of posts last week. Midterms kind of caught me off guard and even though they weren’t really all that stressful, they did manage to keep me busy. To make up for my absence, you get two entries today! The first is a recipe for my current culinary obsession. If the only mouth I was feeding was my own, I’d probably make a month’s worth of this pasta salad and eat it everyday for every meal.

 

What you’ll need:

• 1 lb medium pasta shells
• 1 large cucumber, peeled and diced
• 1/2 fresh dill, chopped
• 2 tbs mayo
• 2 tbs olive oil
• 1 lemon, juiced

What you’ll do:

Cook the pasta according to the directions on the package. Drain and let cool. Meanwhile, whisk the mayo, olive oil and lemon juice until you have a smooth dressing. Combine the pasta shells, cucumber, and dill. Add the dressing and stir to coat your salad. You can serve it like that or let it chill in the fridge for a while if you’re more patient than me.

Chocolate Orange Cupcakes

 

Can you believe I had never baked cupcakes before last week? When I stumbled upon this delicious recipe about a month ago, I went out and got a cupcake tray, cupcake paper, and a bag of powdered sugar. Most of the ingredients were already in my pantry!

Cupcake Ingredients:

• 1 box chocolate cake mix
• orange juice
• oil
• 1/2 orange, zested

Icing Ingredients:

• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 8 tablespoons butter, softened
• 3 tablespoons orange juice
• 1 orange, zested

For cupcakes, follow the directions on the cake mix box, only replacing water with orange juice. Add in the orange zest, too. This should make about two dozen cupcakes.

The frosting is super easy, also. Just mix all the ingredients until they’re nice and smooth. Add orange juice three tablespoons is not enough to get a workable frosting.

Original recipe (with more beautiful photos) found here.