quick and easy pasta salad

When I moved out at the age of 19 I was the only person in my friends circle who had their own apartment, let alone the ability to cook. After a few teething problems I started working at a local restaurant and when I wasn’t working, I constantly had people around. The main dishes we cooked were Spaghetti Bolognese – no surprises here -, Gnocchi and Tortellini with fried courgette, tomatoes, pine nuts and rocket and this pasta salad in variations. It’s one of the easiest recipes I know, mainly because the only cooking involved is boiling the pasta. However, I did once have a roommate who put the pasta into the pot first to then cover it with cold water and boil it. Needless to say, I usually took over the cooking. For this recipe you will need:

A pack of pasta of your choice, a glass or pack of semi dried tomatoes, roughly chopped, a glass of olives, roughly chopped, a bunch of spring onions, sliced, a bag of rocket, washed, 100g of pine nuts and a pack of feta cheese, crumbled.

Simply mix all the ingredients with the cooked pasta (cool it with running cold water) and add the dressing. Stir and done!

For the dressing you have two choices: Either you mix the oil from the tomatoes with a generous splash or two of apple cider vinegar, whisk in a bit of salt and pepper or you make a pesto dressing: a bunch of basil and 2 cloves of garlic with 30ml vinegar and 60ml olive oil, salt and pepper, quickly blended, pour over the salad, mix, done.

Several variations I can think of: Use fresh tomatoes and cucumber to make the salad a bit more vegetable heavy. Use a drained tin of tuna or cooked chicken to add some animal protein. Replace the feta cheese with fresh mozzarella or parmesan. Add artichokes or fried mushrooms. For a vegan version replace the feta cheese with vegan feta cheese and make sure you use a vegan vinegar. Of course you can also replace the pine nuts with other nuts. Really, the possibilities are endless.

This salad is also an ideal thing to bring to any garden party or house warming party where you bring your own food – it’s a classic and people love it.