I love summer produce straight from the garden. I have another big garden this year and my girls love it! I have a lot of cilantro and parsley that I needed to use before it bolted. I grabbed about a grocery store bunch of parsley and a handful of baby dill and brought it to the house to fix for dinner.
I was thinking of making a simple parsely salad, but I also wanted the girls to eat some for dinner. Even though they like almost all vegetables, I like to include other things I know they like with their veggies. So I grabbed some giant rigatoni noodles and boiled them. I thought they would love putting the noodles on their fingers.
While the noodles were boiling I quickly chopped up the parsely, and few green onions and the dill. When the noodles were finished, I put them in a big bowl and threw in all the chopped veggies. It didn’t look green enough, so I grabbed some frozen peas (my garden ones still aren’t quite there) and threw those in with the rest of the veggies and pasta. With the noodles still being warm, they quickly thawed out the peas.
You can leave the salad as is, or add in some protein. I added some chicken that I had cooked the night before. Bacon would be delicious, or even canned chicken or tuna would also work. You can eat immediately or serve chilled, either way is scrumptious.
Salad Ingredients
- 1 bag of pasta (spiral, penne, rigatoni)
- 1 bunch parsely, chopped
- 3 green onions, sliced
- 1 bag (12-16 oz) frozen peas
- 3-4 sprigs fresh dill, chopped (optional)
- 2-3 Chicken breasts, cooked and shredded (optional)
Dressing Ingredients
- 4 Tbspn white vinegar
- 4 Tbspn lemon/lime juice (substitute vinegar if needed)
- 2-3 tspn salt, to taste
- 3 Tbspn Olive oil
Directions
- Fix the pasta according to the package directions. While the pasta is cooking, chopped the parsley, green onions and dill.
- When the pasta is done, drain and quickly put in a mixing bowl. Add the frozen peas and the rest of the chopped veggies and stir gently.
- If you are adding chicken or other protein add as well.
- Sprinkle salt, oil, vinegar and lemon juice over everything and mix again. Taste to see if more salt is needed.
- Serve immediately, or chill for half an hour before serving. Refrigerate any leftovers.
