‘Everything but the Kitchen Sink’ Pasta Salad

A few weeks ago I was at Sarah’s house and we were planning on going to the beach the following day.  We scrounged around her kitchen for beach sandwiches but they didn’t have any bread or meats.  Her family has a stocked pantry that I envy, so we snooped around and found tons of ingredients to make a delicious, light and healthy pasta salad.

The ingredients we used were:

• whole wheat bow tie pasta
• crushed tomatoes (canned, drained)
• chickpeas (rinsed, from a can)
• frozen corn (rinse under warm water to thaw)
• baby carrots (chopped small)
• cucumbers (from the R’s garden)
• green and yellow zucchini (also from their garden which we blanched)
• sugar snap peas (from the garden and blanched)
• feta cheese
• a touch of Newman’s Own Oil and Vinegar salad dressing

This was the most economical solution to our no sandwich problem.  If we had purchased sandwiches at a deli, we would have spent around $15.  This was free! We literally used what we had and you can make this with any type of vegetable, fruit, bean or base you can find.

We made an enormous bowl of this pasta salad, thinking that we would have plenty of leftovers.  We ended up with a large group of people at the beach that day and the whole pot was devoured! I highly recommend this dish and it’s great to throw into a beach bag with an ice pack for a bikini friendly lunch.

Nom Nom!