In the meantime, my gift to you is my most-favorite pasta salad ever, made from Amy Owen's recipe. In fact, we now know it as "Amy's pasta salad". It's yummy, it's easy, and it's the little things in life that make me smile.
~ 1 package dry rainbow pasta (or whatever your favorite is. Rainbow is fun because of all the colors.)
~ 1 head of broccoli
~ 1 package kielbasa
~ 1 block (16 oz) of cheese
~ 1 bunch green onion
~ italian salad dressing - I make it with balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and the italian seasoning packets, but use whatever you like.
~ I also like to add cucumbers, tomotoes, black olives...whatever floats your boat.
Cook pasta according to box directions. While that is cooking, cut up everything else. I like to add more broccoli than you think you'll need because it tends to hide. For the green onion, I cut up all the white part, plus a bit of the green as well. The smaller the better so you don't see it on your fork, but you taste it when you eat it. I also like to mix up the cheese. I usually use 8oz of pepperjack and 8oz of cheddar, but again, use whatever is your favorite.
I have one of those salad dressing carafes I make my own dressing in. Put all items chopped up in your favorite large plastic container, and pour cooked and rinsed pasta on top of it. I pour half of the bottle of dressing on top of pastsa (no mixing yet) and put it in the fridge for all the juices to mingle. When it's time to eat, I pull it out of the fridge, mix it up, put some in a bowl, and then put a little more dressing on top. The pasta will soak up some of the dressing, but I like to add a little bit more right before I eat it. Add whatever else you like! It's one of those things where you have to make it once to figure out what else you want to add.
Enjoy!
