Leftover Dressing and Pasta Salad

Remember that trip to Rugby, TN I talked about a couple of weeks ago?

Well, I went a little crazy.

We were only there 2 1/2 days and I brought enough food for like a week- and that was just me!  My inlaws brought enough to feed an army too, so we ended up bringing home a LOT of leftovers.

One of those leftovers was a bottle of Italian salad dressing that went completely untouched.  I brought green salad along with us, but forgot dressing.  We stopped and bought a bottle of nondescript Italian dressing at the last bastion of civilization on the way out to Rugby- a Dollar General.

Anyway, long story short, my family doesn't really use Italian dressing, especially of the rather bland variety we had sitting in our fridge.  I didn't want to throw it away, though, so I went looking for recipes in which to use it.

This turned out to be really yummy- perfect if you're just throwing something together and want something SUPER, crazy, incredibly uncomplicated!  Tri-color rotini, chopped broccoli, pepperoni right out of the package, mozzarella right out of the bag, olives from the can, and a bottle of salad dressing- can't get much easier than that, right?  You probably even have most of that on hand already!

The best part is that even if you find yourself with blah dressing like I did it's easy to perk up- I added red wine vinegar, garlic powder, onion powder, Italian seasoning, and black pepper to mine and it was fantabulous- yes that is a word now.  :-)

Keep this one in your file for a quick and easy side- it would be great with pretty much any veggie you want to use up thrown in!

Rainbow Pasta Salad

From Allrecipes.com

1 (16 ounce) package tri-color rotini pasta

1/4 pound sliced pepperoni sausage

1 cup fresh broccoli florets

1 (6 ounce) can black olives, drained and sliced

1 (8 ounce) package mozzarella cheese, shredded

1 (16 ounce) bottle Italian-style salad dressing

1. a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente; drain and rinse twice in cold water.

2. In a large bowl, combine cooked pasta, pepperoni, broccoli, olives, cheese and dressing.
Refrigerate for at least 1 hour before serving.