Italian Pasta Salad

Possibly the easiest salad to bring to a potluck at work or the in-laws. Super colorful too! Yay for trippy colors, hues and shapes. Thought these should be just from the salad itself. Hopefully no one spiked the tang with LSD, because that would be illegal. Having guests with melting faces is also a bummer. So is trying to stop someone from nailing a steak through your heart because they are convinced you are a vampire.

There are many ways of killing a vampire, holy water, garlic canapés, sunlight or just hitting them upside the head with a crucifix. By and far the most popular and the best known seems to be the good old fashioned staking. (Or it seems to be the most popular method with movie producers and hack novelists alike. The one thing about hammering a stake through someone’s chest is that it works on regular people too not just vampires. It sort of throws the argument off balance a bit.

Legends and fears never die, even today you could be travelling through some quaint Romanian village when all of a sudden some grubby peasant with a push broom moustache pounds a wooden stake through the heart of some other grubby peasant with a push broom moustache because last week grubby peasant 2 (Henceforth known as the stakee) looked cross eyed at his sheep. Whereupon they all got dribble bottom and died in a great flatulent ovine mess.

Then instead of arresting grubby peasant number one (Henceforth known as the Staker) and having him shot by the not so secret police. All the other grubby peasants with push broom moustaches say: “Oh the stakee was a vampire; we can prove it; we stabbed him through the heart with a wooden stake and now he is dead, that proves that he was a vampire.” This is the point where I should run if I were you, run far and run fast. Before the next grubby peasant decides that they have a sudden curiosity to see if you float when thrown into the river with the engine block of a Yugo tied around your neck.

Well on with the salad.

Ingredients for a few peeps, should serve 10-12 or more as a side salad. But some people are greedy sods and take more than they should they should be staked.

1 16 oz package of tri color pasta, rotini is my favorite for this one; if you are making a larger amount you can mix different shapes together like wacky mac.

½ Bottle zesty Italian dressing

1 Can small ripe black olives

1 Chopped seeded red pepper or one small jar diced pimento

1 Bunch green onions chopped

¼ Cup grated parmesan cheese

How you do this? I tell you now: 

Mix all together and chill for about 20-30 minutes or longer for flavors to develop. Yup that’s all you need to do Other items that are great optional extras: Stuffed green olives, minced garlic, chopped red onion, whole cherry tomatoes, fresh mushrooms, cooked broccoli, chopped green pepper, gorgonzola or slivered almonds.

And another pic! This stuff is great!