Cold Pasta Primavera

From the moment I tasted a Cold Pasta Primavera salad in a restaurant, I have been hooked!! The one that I had from the restaurant had sliced pepperoni, pickled jalapenos, cherry tomatoes, green peppers, olives, mushrooms and a dressing that I couldnt really place (probably Italian dressing) and it tasted awesome!! I searched on the internet for a recipe that I could make at home and came across this particular recipe. It had been bookmarked for quite sometime when I finally decided that it was time for the recipe to come out of its anonimity!!

This recipe was definitely different than the one which I fell in love with. But it was delicious nonetheless. Neither JM nor I are excited about salads but both of us enjoyed this pasta. Even lil LM did her part by oggling over the colorful salad and finished off her share with some sphagetti sauce. I halved the amount of the dressing ingredients which still was a bit strong than I wanted. Check out the actual recipe here. The recipe given below is how I made the pictured salad. I didnt have a few ingredients specified in the recipe, so the one given below will be the actual recipe minus those ingredients.

Recipe:

Rotini twists (cooked) - 3 cups
Fresh petite sized mushrooms - sliced, 1/2 cup
Grape tomatoes - 1/4 cup
Green pepper - 1/2, thinly sliced
Pitted black olives - 1/2 cup, sliced

Dressing:

Vegetable oil - 1/3 cup*
Salad vinegar - 1/6 cup**
Chopped fresh parsley - 1/8 cup
Garlic, minced - 1 small clove
Salt - 1/4 tsp
Freshly ground pepper

Method:

Cook pasta, drain and rinse with cold water.

Combine the pasta, olives, mushrooms, green pepper and tomatoes.

Mix the dressing ingredients together and pour over the veggies.

Combine well and refrigerate for atleast 1 hour.

Source: From the website Cooks.com

Tips:

1. I have omitted asparagus, red and yellow peppers, broccoli and fresh basil (looks like a lot! ;-)).
2. *1/3 cup vegetable oil was a bit too much for 3 cups of cooked pasta - definitely reduce it to 1/6 cup.
3. **1/6 cup of salad vinegar was a bit too tangy - reduce to 2 tbsp.
4. Refrigerate for atleast an hour because it will allow the pasta to absorb the flavors and will balance the tanginess of the salad vinegar. Since our pasta was tangy, we smothered it with sphagetti sauce and finished it off!

Hope you enjoy this recipe and have a great day!!