I’ve had pretty good success with many of the new recipes I’ve tried recently, so to be honest, the law of averages had to mean that something I’d make in the future would turn out to be a total dud, right?

I stumbled onto this one-pot pasta caprese salad recipe on Facebook, through a page called Tasty.  I’m sure you’ve heard of it.  I’ve never used that source for recipes before, but given the recipes I’ve seen there before, I was pretty confident that it would taste good (almost wrote “be tasty”, but thought I shouldn’t be so obvious…).

Obviously, MM and I aren’t going to eat the entirety of a salad like this, mainly because that would be A LOT, and MM doesn’t do tomatoes that haven’t been turned into some sort of sauce.  Therefore, the potluck picnic that was scheduled for last night was the perfect opportunity to try this new recipe.  Not only that, but the friends that would be there would be just fine with being guinea pigs for something like this.

I made the pasta salad on Tuesday and threw it in the fridge.  And then I woke up yesterday feeling those horrible feelings that indicate something’s not right with the world.  The world of my sinuses, to be specific.  You know that feeling right?  Itchy eyes, an uptick in congestion, general unease.  After feeling worse and worse through the rest of the day (almost falling asleep sitting at my desk in the late afternoon), I decided to call it.  There was no reason to go and expose my friends with whatever I’ve got going on.

I stayed home and tried some of the pasta dish for my dinner.  And I guess it’s a good thing, because I’m not a fan of it.

Why?  Because it’s pretty darn bland.

I may be biased now that I’m making homemade pasta these days, and to be sure, the pasta itself was bland tasting, but it was more than that.  All the components by themselves tasted fine – tomatoes tasted like tomatoes, mozzarella tasted like mozzarella, etc.  But putting them all together didn’t make a better dish.  They didn’t meld.  I guess you could say that a cold salad like this isn’t given the opportunity to meld flavors, but still, I would have expected SOMETHING.

And for that, I’m not going to post a page on it.  At least, not until I figure out how to fix it.  Does it need more salt and pepper?  More pesto (premade, so that’s out of my hands as well)?  Maybe the addition of balsamic or balsamic reduction?  I don’t know.  But I’m not posting it as is.

(And for those curious, no, I’m not feeling better today…)

More later!