Easy Pasta Salad

Our garden has continued to produce a ton of tomatoes. As a person who likes to just eat tomatoes raw all by themselves, this does not bother me. HOWEVER, in order to actually use them up, we've been having a lot of tomato-based dishes. AND I'm still preserving some. YAY!

So, this was a quick, easy pasta salad created on a day when my energy was gone from a hot day, and people were starting to rumble about being hungry. EASY and QUICK. Most pasta salads have noodle/veggie base and then a specific dressing or sauce for flavor. NOT TODAY!

You'll need:
Whatever fresh veggies you have. I used garden tomatoes, garden green beans, garden green peppers, and raw spinach (from the grocery store). (It ended up being about 4 cups total of veggies.)
 1 box of Noodles of some kind (I used rotini)
A grilled meat of your choice (I used chicken)
Dressings of varying types
Croutons or chow mein noodles or whatever to add crunch

Chop up the veggies

From The Diet Coke Diet

Cook up the noodles, rinse with ice and cold water.

From The Diet Coke Diet

Grill up the meat (I forgot to take a picture)

Throw it all together, and CHILL.

From The Diet Coke Diet

(Seriously, I totally forgot to take a picture with the chicken added...)

At meal time, I offered up several different dressing options. That way, I didn't have to MAKE a dressing and people could put whatever they wanted on it. We ranged from plain (children) to Ranch (Derek and my dad) to Italian (Me) to Asian Sesame (My mom). This is the key that makes it easy and quick. People added croutons for crunch.

I served strawberries and pineapple and french bread with jam and butter as sides. Have I mentioned how EASY this is?

PLUS if there are leftovers, you've got an entirely new flavor option next time, making it a whole new meal.

And seriously, a great way to use up what you have and enjoy a last vestige of summer.

Yum.