Spring Time Blues Pasta Salad

Recently, after the loss of our cat Max, my boy friend and I found ourselves doing a little shopping at Home Depot. Now you know you're depressed when Home Depot is your idea of retail therapy when your in your twenties, but regardless, there we were walking around red plastic lawn furniture- which we bought- when we stumbled upon the BBQ section. Minutes later we were carting out our new $79 charcoal grill/smoker and the previously mentioned lawn furniture.

I don't even want to talk about the experience of putting the stupid grill together because it was that frustrating but in the end we decided that a BBQ was necessary to brighten our spirits.

Now, no offense honey, the spectacular part of this meal had nothing to do with the grill. The BBQ atmosphere inspired me to make some delicious pasta salad on a whim, which consequently created the concept for this blog. Cheap, easy to make and above all, oh so good.

Enjoy!

Spring Time Blues Pasta Salad

Makes 6-8 Servings
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 2 hours, 20 minutes
Total Estimated Cost: $8.00


Ingredients:
1 package tri color spiral pasta (grocery store brand runs around $1)
1 each green and red bell pepper
1/4 large red onion (I used the rest for burger toppings)
1 cucumber
1 bottle Italian salad dressing (I lucked out and got a pretty good one for $1.75)
Salt and Pepper

Preparation:
Cook pasta according to package instructions. Under cook just slightly. Drain.

While your waiting for the water boil for your pasta, wash your veggies. Take the tops off of both bell peppers and clean out all the seeds. Cut length wise into 1/4 - 1/2 inch strips.

Then cut strips into one inch sections, set aside. 

Cut the onion into three or four 1/4 inch rounds. 

Then cut the rounds to be about the same size as the bell peppers. Set aside. 

After you have drained your pasta DO NOT rinse it. Alton Brown taught me that when you rinse off your pasta, you rinse off some of the starches. These starches allow pasta sauces to adhere to the pasta giving you greater flavor. Pour the pasta into a nice big salad bowl and pour about half of the (cold) dressing over it. Toss to coat. Add your bell peppers, onions, salt and pepper to taste. Toss again.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for one hour.

While your chilling the pasta salad peel the cucumber and cut into 1 inch thick coins. Cut the coins in quarters. Uncover the pasta salad and add about half of whats left of the dressing to taste and the cucumbers. Toss to coat.

Cover and refrigerate again for about an hour or until nice and cold. Enjoy!

Can be made a day in advance. I actually like it better the day after!