Presto Pesto Pasta Salad

Say that five times fast!

I have been quite the social butterfly this weekend! I had book club Friday night, Bunco last night, and this evening we're going to a barbecue with some of Mr. Spice's friends. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly our weekends get filled up in the summer.

Anyway, it's been nasty hot here in GA so I thought I'd bring something that could be served cold. Pasta salad was my first thought and I looked around at some different recipes. And then I realized I was making this WAY more difficult than it needed to be. I have a tendency to do that.

As you know, I'm all about saving time and taking shortcuts when I can without sacrificing on taste. I think you'll agree that not only does this go together really quickly, but the flavors all go together as well. I didn't really measure anything here, so adjust quantities as you want.




Presto Pesto Pasta Salad

1 box pasta -- I used tri-colored rotini
pre-prepared pesto -- I used Classico pesto
Mozzarella cheese, cut into tiny cubes
sliced black olives, cut into halves
fresh tomatoes, diced
fresh parsley for garnish (optional)

Boil pasta in salted water. While pasta is cooking, cut up cheese, tomatoes, and olives.

Drain pasta and immediately rinse in cold water until pasta cools off. Put in large bowl.

Add pesto and coat pasta thoroughly. Add pesto as needed to taste. Then add cheese, olives, and tomatoes, and toss to combine. Sprinkle parsley if using. Refrigerate for a couple hours before serving.

You can play around with this however you want to. Add more veggies, add meat, whatever you want. I made this without meat since I wasn't sure if there were any vegetarians coming tonight, but next time I might add some grilled chicken or chopped salami. If you want to make your own pesto, go for it, but you know how lazy I am!

On a sandwich roll!

Hahaha, I'm so clever!

Last night, I came home from a long day of tax torture and all I wanted was a sandwich on that heavenly pepperorn-asiago bread. I even had the whole thing planned out -- the bread, pesto, turkey, fresh mozzarella, spinach, tomato, and red onion. And some baked garlic fries. Sounds good, doesn't it? Too bad I waited too long to use the mozzarella and it was past the "eat by" date. So I had to make do with some string cheese.

Mr. Spice just wanted turkey on his sandwich and only wanted a teeny sandwich. Wuss.

I ended up grilling our sandwiches on our grill pan -- I need to figure out a better way to keep my sandwich from falling apart. They turned out really well though and I think I'll be doing more sandwich concoctions during tax season!

Be very jealous of this sandwich!

I think that I need to make pesto salmon again just so that I can have this sandwich again.

So simple but so good.

It's just some asiago-peppercorn sourdough bread, a light layer of pesto, some leftover pesto salmon, and then sliced fresh baby spinach, campari tomato, and red onion. That's it. And some baked fries on the side.

Yum yum.

Pesto Salmon

This has got to be one of the easiest recipes ever. Which is why I decided to make it! :D

I bought some fresh, skinless salmon yesterday at Publix and wanted to make something I could take for lunch tomorrow. Possibly even in a bento (don't hold your breath!). We have some lovely pesto in our fridge just screaming to be used. I even bought some fancy pants asiago peppercorn sourdough bread and some fresh mozzarella from Trader Joe's in the hopes of making a fancy pants Italian-style grilled cheese sandwich with it. All in good time, my darlings.

For now you'll have to be happy with this oh so simple yet yummy salmon.

Is there even a point in typing this up as a recipe?

1 lb. of salmon fillets, skinned
pesto in a jar (I used Classico)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with foil, spray with cooking spray and sprinkle with some salt and pepper.

Lay the salmon on foil, take a fork and stab the fillets a few times. Take the pesto and slather on. Use as much as you want, I just took a big glob and spread it over the two. So precise I am.

Bake for about 20 minutes or until salmon is done to your liking.

Tada!

Note -- it's really hard to take good pictures of food when all but one of the overhead lights in the kitchen have gone out and the surface light on your stove is really yellow-y and the sun is starting to set. I did the best I could, and let the auto-fix Picnik feature on Flickr take care of the rest.