Pasta Salad

One of the great things I love about summer is pasta salad. Now we could make them all year long, but there is something about the cold pasta and the different veggies that reminds me of a picnic. I guess I just don’t think about making and serving a pasta salad in November.

Anyway Pasta Salads can be easy to make and rather quick to put together too. Recently we were shopping at Trader Joe’s and we were talking about how many cool things that Trader Joe’s sells that could really make a pasta salad special.

There are a zillion ways to make pasta salad with any number of ingredients that you could add. Main ingredient is of course, the past! We like to use a smallish noodle, but we have also made yummy pasta salads with leftover spaghetti.

Next, we like to think about what veggies we would like to use (either buy or use up) like tomatoes, broccoli, diced zucchini, bell pepper stripes, peas, etc… We also like to include an “onion” item either sweet Vidalia Onions, Red Onions, or Green onions.  Next we think about a full-flavor or “special” item to pull the salad together. This might be pesto, or sundried tomatoes cut in small stripes, or some olives.

Well, all that planning for a pasta salad motivated us to make one today!

Ingredients:

• Whole Wheat pasta (we used those little spirals called rotelle)
• Cherry Tomatoes (in red and yellow, cut in 1/4)
• Broccoli (cut up into small pieces)
• Green Onions sliced thin
• Trader Joe’s Pitted Kalamata olives (the “special” ingredient), chopped
• Trader Joe’s Parmesan Cheese (a couple of spoonfuls)
• Dressing: olive oil

What to do:

Cook pasta according to package directions. About ½ way through the cooking, add the broccoli pieces to the cooking water. Let the broccoli cook with the pasta until the pasta is finished cooking. Drain and rinse briefly in cool water then place in a mixing bowl.

Next add the rest of the vegetables, and toss lightly with olive oil. Season with your favorite spices – we used Trader Joe’s 21 Salute , garlic powder, salt and pepper along with the parmesan cheese.

Variations:

Here is where you can be creative. You can use up some cooked vegetables or add a can of garbanzo beans if you like. Trader Joe’s also sells a large selection of items that would really make a pasta salad special. These include artichoke hearts, tapenade (already chopped up olives)  or even brochette.

We were planning to tell you to leave the pasta salad in the refrigerator until cool but it looked so good that we had to “sample” it right away. Even warm it was just delish!

The next time you are at Trader Joe’s check out the isle with all the canned beans and olive oils and see how inspired you are. If you see anything that you are not sure about, leave us a note and we will try and help you out.