Greek Pasta Salad

I love pasta salad, but the problem is sometimes I find that the pasta is quite tasteless & worse for me is if it is undercooked…or overcooked I suppose!  I realize I don’t love the vegetables in there either…I am not being critical of other peoples pasta salads…I just wanted to make mine a bit different & see how it turned out.

So. I have roasted some vegetables, left out the cucumber & gave it a try. I used a greek pasta salad dressing that I have previously used. I roasted some fish to eat with this…I will tell you haw I made the fish as well although I do not have a picture of it….we ate it up before I could get one!

This recipe makes a good quantity of pasta salad so if it is just for a couple of you, I would halve the recipe. Or increase it as needed for a crowd! I would say that this serves 8 people with a good size portion.

Greek Pasta Salad

Ingredients

 Greek Pasta Salad

4 cups uncooked shell pasta *** you can use any kind of pasta shape you like but not a long one… rotini, macaroni …something like that

1 yellow pepper, sliced thinly

1 orange pepper, sliced thinly

225 g ( 1/2 pound) small tomatoes, cut in 1/4’s if big or in 1/2 for smaller tomatoes *** I used cocktail tomatoes but grape or cherry would work here too

2 – 3 Tbsp olive oil *** for the vegetables

1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes

1/2 cup pitted olives, sliced *** I used kalamata olives & cut them in half

3/4 cup feta, crumbled up *** add more or less feta…to your liking

Greek Salad Dressing  

*** please not that there is no added salt to this dressing. the feta & olives are salty & it is not needed in the dressing 

1/2 cup olive oil

3 tbsp lemon juice

1 clove garlic, minced

1/2 tsp oregano

2 tsp Dijon mustard

Method

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil
2. Add the pasta & cook until it is tender ***I do not like pasta to be al-dente in a pasta salad
3. While the pasta is cooking, roast the vegetables
4. Put the peppers & tomatoes on a lined baking sheet ***I used aluminum foil
5. Toss the vegetables with the 2 tbsp olive oil & sprinkle with coarse salt
6. Bake the vegetables in a 400f oven until soft, approx 15 minutes *** this time depends on the size you have cut your vegetables…so keep on eye on them!
7. When the vegetables are soft, remove them from the oven & set aside
8. Mix the salad dressing together while everything else is cooking **** mix all of the salad ingredients together in a jar & shake it up. Set Aside
9. When your pasta is finished cooking, drain it & put into a really large bowl that will allow you to mix everything together
10. Add the cooked vegetables to the pasta
11. Add the olives & feta
12. Put the salad dressing on & mix throughly  *** for this amount of pasta I used all of the dressing reserving about 1 tbsp for the fish  ***Adjust the amount of dressing you use to the amount of pasta you have. You need enough dressing so that this salad is tasty & not dry

This is how I made the fish

I had 2 pieces of defrosted cod that I had bought at Costco. I put the pieces of fish on the same bakinng tray that I had cooked the vegetables on, on the same paper..which added some flavour to the bottom of the fish…I realized this when we were eating it…it was a good idea. I took 2 handfuls..haha…of panko crumbs & put them into a bowl, added about 1 tbsp of olive oil & the tbsp of the left-over salad dressing..mixed it up together so the crumbs were nice & moist. I put salt & peper on the fish, then I used half of the crumb mixture on each piece of fish…sprinkled it with parsley flakes & baked it at 400f until it was cooked. I was not going to blog about this fish.. that is also why there is not picture, but it turned out really delicious so I thought I would add it . I think that any salad dressing with the crumbs will work..

Enjoy!