Pasta Salad

Sounds vague right? Well, this is sometimes called Italian Pasta Salad. It has many variations and is a great summer salad, either as a meal itself or as a side.

Ingredients:

2 cups Garden Rotini Pasta
1 cucumber
1 each green, red, yellow, orange small sweet bell peppers (more or less to taste, all green works too.)
1/2 can chopped large black olives
1 diced tomatoes (I usually leave these out, but if you like tomatoes they are a great addition)
1/2 cup Italian dressing (zesty Italian is nice too, add more or less to taste)

Directions:

Boil pasta until tender, drain, rinse in cold water and place in fridge to chill. Dice all veggies, I like to peel my cucumbers- but it is not vital, add veggies to noodles and stir.  Add dressing and stir. Chill for a few minutes before serving.

The Chicken of the Sea: Tuna Salad

Tuna salad is a summer staple in our house. Lunch, Dinner, Snack you name the time Tuna salad works! This can be made with relatively few ingredients on hand too! I usually make quite a large portion of it and we eat it for a couple days so keep that in mind when following this recipe, you may want to fraction depending on the size of group you are feeding and how much left over you like.  We also prefer to eat this with chips, Ruffles or Sun chips are our favorites. I also like eating it with toast, but I am in the minority there in my house.

2 cans chunk light tuna in water
2 cups salad roni or macaroni

Sauce:
1 cup miracle whip
1 tblspoon lemon juice
3 tblspoons milk
1 tspn Nature's Season
1/2 tspn Onion salt
1 tspn Celery Flakes ( if you are not adding fresh celery)
3/4 tspn Garlic salt
1/2 tspn Curry powder
1/4 tspn Paprika

Extra optionals:
Celery
Green Bell Peppers
Sweet peppers red, yellow, orange
Green Onions

Taco Salad

Time for a nice cool summer meal!  We love this recipe it requires no cooking at all and is quite filling!

I got this recipe from a Kraftfoods Magazine, it was called Southwest Layered Salad, but we just call it Taco Salad.

6 cups torn romaine lettuce ( we actually prefer baby spinach leaves for this salad )
1 can (15 oz) black beans, rinsed/drained
1 can mexicorn, drained
3/4 cup salsa
1/2 - 1 cup shredded cheese ( we like the Kroger Mexican blend )
1/4 cup ranch dressing ( we actually don't put this in the bowl but let everyone add it at will )
Tortilla chips

Place leaves in the bottom of the bowl add layers of beans, corn, salsa, and cheese. Repeat until bowl is full.  We like to put the corn chips on our plate and cover them with the salad and then add the ranch dressing. Enjoy!