Sunday's Salad

There was a covered dish dinner at church on Sunday. After many years of getting up early on Sunday morning to cook something, I finally got smart and picked a recipe that I could make the day before. The second smart thing I did was to look back* through my recipes here on the blog to find something I knew was good. This salad is always a hit and it's better when made the day before. 

To keep from washing more pots, when the water for the pasta came to a boil, I dunked in the broccoli to blanch it for a minute. (Yep, I held it by the stem and dunked it.) Then I let the corn (on the cob) cook for five minutes and took it out. Then I cooked the pasta in the same water. Less to clean up.

This time I used rotini and my veggies were onion, celery, green pepper, carrot, zucchini, grape tomatoes, broccoli and corn. You can use any combination. If you are going to the store to buy vegetables for this, look for the vegetables that are not prepackaged. It only takes about one each (or less) of the vegetables listed. 

GARDEN PASTA SALAD

1 (16-oz) box of pasta -- bowtie, penne, or rotini

5 cups of chopped fresh vegetables

fresh parsley, chopped (if you have it)

1 (16-oz) bottle Italian salad dressing

3-4 tablespoons McCormick Salad Supreme Seasoning 

Cook the pasta according to package directions. Rinse under cold water. Drain well. Put pasta and vegetables and parsley into a large bowl. Add salad dressing and Salad Supreme Seasoning. Toss gently until mixed well. Cover. Refrigerate for 4 hours, or until ready to serve.

This recipe filled a 5-quart plastic container.

*There are two ways to look for recipes here. You can use the Recipe Index tab just under the blog header. Or, you can use the search box found in the top left corner. That search box is small but it's there--it has the magnifying glass "search" symbol in the box.

Covered Dish Dinner Success