Pasta Salad

This is so easy and everyone in my family likes it! I always have the ingredients on hand to make pasta salad so it's great for company or if I need to bring something to a pot luck. Make a lot so you have leftovers for the next day.

Required Ingredients:
Dry rotini, penne, or other pasta
Bottled Italian or Greek salad dressing (we like Pat & Oscar's, from Costco)
various vegetables

Vegetable Suggestions:
Fresh broccoli florets, cut small
Frozen peas
Carrots cut in thin matchstick size pieces
Cherry tomatoes
Sliced black olives or greek olives
sliced cucumbers
sliced celery

Optional Goodies:
Chopped leftover ham
Chopped or shredded leftover chicken
Feta Cheese
Sliced Mozzarella string cheese

Cook the pasta. During the last minute of cooking, drop the broccoli florets in the boiling water with the pasta and blanch for 1 minute. Dump the pasta and broccoli into a strainer. When drained, dump into a large bowl and add a whole package of frozen peas. (The peas cool the pasta and the pasta slightly cooks the peas! This is great if you're in a hurry.) Stir in whatever other ingredients you want, and dressing. It's nice to have a variety of colors (and I always have these on hand) so I always use carrots, olives, and peas.

Costco sells a prepared Greek pasta salad that's good. But all it is, as far as a can tell, is penne pasta, Greek dressing, feta cheese, Greek olives, and shredded roasted chicken. So you could easily do this at home.