I must confess at the outset, that I am not much of a cook. I don’t measure, unless I’m following an instruction book. And because I’m on a restricted diet, I’m usually cooking just for myself as my husband likes regular food. But there is one thing I make that has survived all the changes in my dietary habits and still tastes good enough for my husband to eat: pasta salad.

The really great thing about pasta salad is that it can be modified in many ways to suit ones taste or dietary limits. So feel free to experiment as much as you wish with the following ingredients as there’s really no wrong way to make this. Leave out anything you don’t like or can’t eat and adjust the amounts to your preference.
Here are the basic ingredients for the salad:
Tri-colored rotini or spiral pasta
Cucumber
Tomato
Mushrooms
Bell pepper
Celery
Onion
Green olives
Black olives
Ham
This is what you need for the dressing:
Olive oil
Vinegar
Paprika
Pepper
Seasoned salt
Cook the pasta according to package directions. Rinse in cold water and drain and put in a bowl. Cut veggies into bite-sized pieces and add to pasta. Chop up ham and add to salad. Put in olives. Combine dressing ingredients in a measuring cup according to taste and pour into the salad. Mix well. You can refrigerate the salad, but I think it tastes best if you eat it right away.
Variations:
For people with celiac disease, use rice pasta, a safe vinegar like red wine or rice vinegar, and maybe leave out the olives if you can’t find any you are certain are gluten free. For diabetics, keep the pasta portion small, use a lot of veggies and use extra lean ham. For people with digestive disorders, you can leave the veggies out completely and just have extra lean ham, pasta and the dressing.Vegetarians, leave out the ham. Use a seasoned salt that doesn’t contain MSG if you are sensitive to this additive. Grape or cherry tomatoes work well with this recipe, but you can also use the regular kind. Portabello mushrooms are a fun variation. The bell peppers can be green, red, yellow, orange or some combination of them. I prefer red onion to yellow or white. I prefer the extra virgin olive oil.
You can make just enough salad to feed yourself, or you can prepare enough to bring to a large pot luck. This salad is good at picnics because it doesn’t contain anything that requires immediate refrigeration.
Happy experimenting!
Recipe by Karen Brauer, Butyoudontlooksick.com, © 2006