11 Minute Pasta Salad

My husband has been nagging me to make pasta salad this week, especially since he harvested broccoli from the garden.  It's a simple recipe I just made up myself with veggies we like.  Thought I'd share :)

1.  Boil a pot of water.  Pour in a box of pasta.  I like to use Garden Delight pasta go get even more veggies in there and for the beautiful colors!

2. Cut the veggies and put them into a 13x9 container.  You could use a deep bowl too, but I don't have one with a cover, so I just use some multipurpose tupperware.  Here are the veggies I used:

• About one and a half heads of broccoli
• 1 pint of grape tomatoes. Cut in half of quartered, depending on size--do what you prefer.
• Coin 3 average carrots.  If you get the giant carrots, one would probably be enough.
• 1 green pepper.  Preferably organic because peppers are in the dirty dozen.  Red peppers would go well too.  

Before Cheese

3. Drain the pasta and add it to the veggies.  I think the little bit of heat and steam brings out more of the flavor in the veggies.

4.  Add about one small container of Italian Dressing.  I usually use Wishbone because it goes on sale.  I'm sure it would also be delicious with homemade dressing, but that would send me over 11 minutes :)

5. Make small cubes out of about 4 oz cheddar cheese. You want to add this last because it will melt if the pasta is hot.

Voila!  Eat or Refrigerate :)