Pasta Salad

Chris, if ever updated the blog, would tell you that he loves his food all mixed together. No main entree with sides, but one big bowl of food. Eggs, Sausage, and Potatoes for breakfast, cut up and mixed together. Rice, Chicken, and Broccoli for dinner, chopped and in a bowl. It's a little strange but I love him.

Pasta Salad is probably the one thing where I like to mix my vegetables, protein, and grain together. Pasta salad or potato salad normally means, "coated with mayonnaise" and I dislike mayonnaise so I prefer to make my own. This recipe is my take on pasta salad. I read this article online about how to make an amazing pasta salad and used some of her pointers.

Ingredients:

Healthy Harvest Fusilli Pasta (whole wheat)

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

The juice and zest of 1/2 a Lemon

Smaller Asparagus stalks

Cherry Tomatoes

Mushrooms

Green Onions

Boars Head Everroast Chicken

Parmesan Reggiano

Salt & Pepper

Garlic Powder

I cooked my pasta and then I spread it out on a baking tray to cool in the refrigerator.

Then I sauteed my asparagus with very little olive oil and some garlic powder.

Slice the tomatoes in half. Chop green onions. Zest lemon. Put these things in a bowl.

Lightly saute the mushrooms when the asparagus is done.

Chop chicken. (I used this chicken because I had some leftovers that needed to be used. If you skip the chicken the recipe is vegetarian. Skip the cheese too and it's vegan. Sorry raw foodies, I cook stuff)

Whisk together the olive oil and lemon juice with salt and pepper to make the dressing.

Use a vegetable peeler to get nice slices of the cheese (yum!)

Lightly mix together and viola!

It has a light bright flavor to it. It's not as vinegar-y as other salads so you might add a little red wine vinegar to your dressing. I don't measure anything so the amounts are kind of whatever looks right. Here is the link to my calorie approximations.

Happy Eating!