my husband's name for this dish is "crack salad" -- unfortunately not a very descriptive title for the components of the dish, so i had to come up with another name...
this is my quick go-to recipe when i don't feel like cooking and need some fresh veggies. we use five cheese tortellini from costco to cut down on prep time. the vegetable prep work can take awhile, but you can rush the prep time by chopping and dicing into larger pieces -- or getting a sous chef to help.
quick tip #1 -- color -- i like to make this salad as colorful as possible. when selecting cherry tomatoes and a bell pepper, choose different colors, i.e. If you select red cherry tomatoes, use a yellow bell pepper.
quick tip #2 -- leftovers -- reserve the avocado separately. top your bowl of salad with the avocado immediately before you add the salad dressing. the pasta, other fresh vegetables, and olives will all store well as leftovers, but the avocado will not.
quick tip #3 -- fine dicing -- if you have the time, i recommend dicing everything into smaller pieces to enable full forkfuls of flavor -- the salad tastes better when you can get each of the vegetables on your fork at once! oh, and use a big fork.
pasta + vegetable salad
ingredients:
- 1 package fresh five cheese tortellini (this is a "fresh" refrigerated pasta from costco (kirkland brand) that cooks in about 3 minutes and is highly recommended -- but, you can substitute your favorite cheese ravioli/tortellini)
- 2 cups finely diced cucumbers
- 2 cups halved cherry tomatoes*
- 1 red, yellow, or orange bell pepper, finely diced
- 2 cups quartered or halved pitted kalamata olives
- 1 avocado, finely diced
- crumbled feta cheese
preparation:
- prepare pasta according to the package directions. it is important to start the pasta before the veggies to ensure the pasta has sufficient time to cool.
- dice, halve, quarter all of the vegetables and place in a large bowl for serving.
- as soon as the pasta is cooked, remove it from the boiling water. place the pasta in a colander and rinse with cold water. as you continue with your vegetable work, place a few generous handfuls of ice on the pasta and occasionally mix the ice around the pasta to cool it.
- when the vegetables and pasta are ready, each person can build their own salad. typically, we put a layer of tortellini on the bottom of the bowl, followed by a generous helping of the fresh vegetable mix (1 part pasta: 2 parts veggies), a bit of avocado, a sprinkling of feta, and topped with the salad dressing and fresh ground black pepper.
- dig in--it's addictive.
mediterranean salad dressing
ingredients:
- 1 small shallot finely minced, or about 2 tbsp. (if you have extra minced shallots, just put them in the vegetable mixture!)
- 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
- 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tsp. dry basil
- 1 tsp. dry oregano
- 1 tsp. dry mint
- 1/8 tsp. dry mustard
- 1 tsp. coarse sea salt
- 1 tsp. coarse ground black pepper
- juice of 1 lemon
preparation:
mix all ingredients well. shake vigorously immediately before pouring over salad.
*any flavorful variety of small tomatoes will do. they are easier to halve than finely dicing a large tomato. plus, the small tomatoes create much less residual tomato liquid--using diced larger tomatoes usually results in more liquid, which can water down the dressing. if you have to dice large tomatoes, squeeze them and have them rest on a paper towel before adding them to the vegetable mixture.