The Mother of All Pasta Salads

Ok, so after another expensive reminder of why it's a bad idea to spend Saturdays with every drawing-to-the-river donkey who spend their weekends on PokerStars, I decided to find another creative outlet to feed my nervous energy, plus I was hungry.

So I hit the kitchen.

I've been thinking of trying to make my own version of a good pasta salad for a few days now, and last week when I went grocery shopping, I gathered all of the ingredients I'd been thinking about.

And now that I finally had some free time away from work/school/computer this afternoon, it was time to get cooking. It wasn't really a complicated recipe--just Fusilli pasta as a base (It was a one in a million shot, Doc!), minced red and green bell peppers, black olives, canned mushroom pieces, sun-dried tomatoes (drained), pepperoni (I used the kind made out of turkey--less fat and a whole lot less greasy), and shredded mozzarella cheese.

Once the pasta was cooked, I mixed together all of the ingredients except the cheese, and then added a half a bottle of Italian dressing. Then I added the cheese, stirred it all up and put it in the fridge. It looks really good, but I figured it would be better if I let the flavors marry overnight. So instead of digging in and enjoying my creation, it's sitting in the fridge waiting until tomorrow, and in the meantime I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch.

But at least I took a picture.


Mmmm.... Food porn!

When I was was first putting it all together, I was afraid that I had too many "ingredients" and not enough pasta. But it looks like it all balanced out afterward. Maybe a tad more green pepper next time, and of course once I finished I thought that it might be even better with a little bit of fresh basil sprinkled on top.

I know, I know, it's not coleslaw, but this is what I did with my Saturday afternoon...

Mikey