Today my Summer Salad Series continues with a guest post from my sister Ashlie over at Brining Babies.  Our mom always had pasta salad in the fridge all summer long growing up.  She would use left over veggies and cheese and mix it with pasta she stocked up with on sale.  Today my sister is sharing her version on our family favorite, enjoy!

I love to make pasta salad in the summer.  It’s a perfect light summer meal or can also be a super side dish at all of your summer get-togethers.  Usually when I make it I go through my fridge to see what veggies and meats I can use up to create something tasty for my family.

I recently tried using the frozen cheese tortellini that you find in the freezer section at grocery stores and it was an instant hit with my girls.  I even sent this creation in their lunch boxes a time or two when I was packing daily for day-care.

Simple Pasta Salad 


Ingredients
1 package of frozen cheese tortellini–cooked and drained
1 large english cucumber sliced 
1 small container of cherry tomatoes quartered
Fresh dill to your liking
Italian dressing (I used 1/3 of a bottle)


Directions
Combine all ingredients and chill in refrigerator 3 hours before serving. Enjoy!

*Another combination that is also very yummy is the cheese tortellini, cooked and sliced up chicken, and ranch dressing tossed together. 


Thanks for filling in for me Ashlie!  I love pasta salad too!  The camera shop called and they can’t fix my camera but they will replace it with a new one so that is good news.  Hopefully that means I will be back with my own salad recipe next week.

As I mentioned in Monday’s picnic table reveal post my camera is in the shop being repaired.  I have had to live without it for 4 weeks and it is killing me because I take it everywhere! Today is my 7th summer salad in my summer salad series and I asked my facebook friends to let me know if they had a recipe they would like to share with all of you. Thankfully Tari from Palo Alto emailed me with her husband Kent’s veggie summer salad and a picture, thanks Tari!

I hope you are enjoying this fun healthy summer series, let me know if you have a salad that you would like me to share!

Hi Amanda,

Here’s a vegetable summer salad that your readers might enjoy. My husband, Kent, created it. Quantities are guesstimate, as it’s more a “look and feel” process…


-Tari

Ingredients
1/4 head small cabbage, shredded
1/4 head cauliflower, chopped small
1-large or 2-small broccoli heads, chopped small
3-4 small/medium tomatoes, chopped
1/8-1/4 C roasted pine nuts (walnuts work, too)
1/8 C dried cranberries (Kent uses orange cranberries from Trader Joe’s)
1/3 C Gorgonzola cheese crumbles
1/3 C chopped fresh cilantro
1 C chicken, diced (we use the Costco rotisserie chicken)
Vinegar & Oil dressing of your choice (he makes his own with 1/3 C Extra Virgin Olive Oil and 1/8 C Balsamic Vinegar, salt & pepper)

Other things you can add:
Cooked frozen corn and/or peas – we typically use any left-over previous meals
beets, diced (Kent roasts fresh beets in the oven…yum!)

Directions
Toss ingredients together. He adds a little salt and pepper to taste.