Recipe Swap: Sweet Beginnings' Summer Pasta Salad

The theme for this week's swap was foods you'd bring to a Memorial Day picnic.  I submitted the uber fabulous and easy Firecracker Shrimp and received Jaida (jaire30) from Sweet Beginnings original pasta salad recipe.  As always, you can see the full blog roundup post in A Taste of Homecooking's blog.

Once again I was thrilled to be able to use up some of my pasta stash and was pleased with the way this recipe tasted.  Very light and refreshing.  The perfect complement to our burgers and dogs!  I wasn't sure about the use of zucchini or the lack of salad dressing "sauce" in this recipe but I have to say, it really worked.  It's not super flavorful (like the salad dressing types) but my-oh-my do those veggies really shine in this dish.  It'll be nice to have an alternative to my standby pasta salad recipe from my mother-in-law when I want to mix things up a bit :).

Please pardon the yellow tint to this photo.  I forgot my camera and so the iPhone was pulling double duty!  But, it's actually not half bad for a camera-phone picture, in my opinion...


Sweet Beginnings' Summer Pasta Salad
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Ingredients

• 2 cups tri-color Rotini or Fusilli Noodles, cooked according to package directions
• 2  Zucchini, sliced into ¼ inch rounds
• Salt, to taste
• Pepper, to taste
• 1 1/2 cups Cherry or Plum Tomatoes, halved
• ½ cup Red Onion, diced
• 1 Tbsp fresh basil, coarsely chopped
• 1 Tbsp + 1 tsp Olive Oil, divided
• 1 Tbsp Red Wine Vinegar
• ½ Lemon (optional)

Directions

1. Lightly sauté zucchini using 1 tsp of olive oil or cooking spray and season with salt & pepper, then cut each round into halves or quarters.
2. Mix olive oil & vinegar together in a small bowl.
3. Toss pasta, zucchini, tomatoes, and onion in a large bowl with the olive oil mixture. Season with salt & pepper, add basil and stir.
4. Refrigerate for 30 minutes, squeeze lemon over pasta (if desired), toss and serve! 

Source: Sweet Beginnings