Cookbook: Pasta Salad

This is quite possibly one of the easiest pasta salad recipes ever invented (and yummiest!). I used to spend a week accompanying a couple families to the beach each summer to babysit their kids and this is a recipe the one mom used to rely on. She adds black olives and some other cheeses, but over the years I've modified it (soley based on my memory capacity and my dislike for olives).

Ingredients:

Cheddar Cheese

Pepperoni

Broccoli

Tomatoes

Pasta

Italian Dressing

1. Boil a large pot of water. 

2. Cut up broccoli into bite sized pieces. 

3. Heavily salt the boiling water and drop in broccoli pieces for a minute or less (You just want to blanch them so that you're not just eating hard, raw broccoli. You're more than welcome to skip this step but for some reason I just prefer it this way.)

4. Take out broccoli and submerge in cool water to stop the cooking process.

5. Add pasta to broccoli/salt water.

6. Cook pasta until al dente 

7. Add 1/2 bottle of Italian dressing to hot pasta. The pasta will absorb the dressing so you don't want to add all of it at once. 

8. Chop up cheese, pepperoni (if necessary) and tomatoes.

9. Let pasta come to room temperature, then drop in remaining ingredients and 1/4 bottle of dressing (if you add the ingredients while hot, the cheese will melt and the tomatoes end up getting soggy).

10. Refrigerate. Once completely cool, you can add the remaining 1/4 dressing.

11. Serve!

This is my go-to side dish, especially for outdoor events or gatherings. I even make a batch and divide it for lunches during the week aside my sandwich. You can pretty much add anything you like or try difference cheeses but for some reason, this is the combo I always come back to. If you try it, let me know what you think!