Lina's Greek Pasta Salad (w/Pics)

I threw this recipe together in a panic one day when my mother in law was visiting from out of town and the husband was making steaks. I had cooked her everything under the sun already so I wanted a side dish that is different and . I just grabbed what I had in my fridge that I thought would make a good combination and the outcome was awesome. So awesome that now whenever I am asked to bring a dish to a party, this is the dish that is always requested. It is so good.

This can be low calorie if you eat one serving and not the entire recipe (which will be hard to not do). My recommendation is to chew gum while making this because you will want to shove spoonfulls in your mouth while saying "oh this is just one bite, it won't hurt me" when in fact you had probably already had 10 pounds of spoonfulls consumed.

It doesn't really get anymore simple than this!

You will need and however much or little you like. You seriously can't screw it up:

- 1 box Barilla's mini penne pasta (or whatever pasta your beautiful heart desires but I recommend these because they are the best for this recipe)
- Some cherry/grape tomatoes (whatever they are called) round ball tomatoes, sliced
- Cucumbers, diced
- Mushrooms, diced
- Kalamata olives, sliced
- Green onions, sliced
- Crumbled feta cheese (ohhhhhhh yesssss)
- Balsamic Vinegar
- Garlic (I use the garlic paste you can buy in the fridge section at your store, but fresh garlic will work too!)
- Olive Oil
- Salt

First thing you want to do is cook your pasta and set to the side to cool. You do not want the pasta to be hot when you mix everything together or you will end up with creamy feta instead of crumble-y feta, which would be a total disgrace to this recipe and mankind.

Grab your self a nice sharp knife and slice your tomatoes...



now your cucumbers...



can you guess what you are going to do with the mushrooms? (pause) You're so smart!



I don't have a picture of the sliced onions. :frown: But I did get one of the olives...



This is where the recipe gets hard, pay very close attention!!

Grab the pasta and throw it in a bowl (remember it's cool at this point), now grab all of the stuff you sliced and diced and throw it on top of the pasta! Ohhhh exciting! Add some balsamic vinegar ( a couple of teaspoons? I don't know, taste and decide), some olive oil, some garlic, some salt and toss the ever living hell out of it. Toss toss toss!

The most important step though is to not toss the feta with everything! At the very end, grab some crumbled feta and throw it in the bowl and fold it with the stuff. If you toss and turn it, it will get all creamy and it will make your pasta look ugly. It will still taste good, but it will be ugly. Ugly Greek pasta salad is a sin. It should look nice and pretty like this!



And if you are feeling extra cute that day, box them up in little portioned containers and take them to lunch each day of the week!



Enjoy!