Cucumber, Tomato And Pasta Salad

Total Time: 20 mins Preparation Time: 10 mins Cook Time: 10 mins

Ingredients

• 2 cups tri-color spiral pasta, uncooked
• 10 -15 cherry tomatoes, cut into halves
• 2 -4 tablespoons black olives, canned sliced
• 1 large cucumber, sliced and quartered (peel, if desired)
• 1/3 cup feta cheese, crumbled
• 1/4 cup italian dressing
• 1 tablespoon almonds, sliced (optional)

Recipe

• 1 cook rotini as directed on package to al dante; drain and run pasta under cold water.
• 2 drizzle italian dressing over pasta, mixing slowly so as not to break apart the pasta pieces. add in tomatoes, black olives, cucumber, and 5 tablespoons of the feta cheese. continue mixing ingredients until well-coated.
• 3 sprinkle remaining feta cheese over pasta mixture and top with almonds. (instead of almonds i've used melissa's salad sprinkles. this could not be located in recipezaar as a recognized ingredient but i wanted to record it in the directions as another option for a salad topper.).
• 4 note: if you don't care for feta cheese, try using parmesan cheese instead. it tastes just as good and gives the salad a somewhat different flavor. use only four to five tablespoons instead and mix in as given above.