Pasta, cooked and cooled, (mini farfalle)
Tomatoes, grape or cherry, quartered
Yellow pepper, diced
Frozen peas, thawed
Green onions, chopped, whites and green tops
Fresh basil, minced
Sweet Italian salad dressing
Feta cheese

AS A GUIDELINE. I usually make pasta salad as half pasta, half vegetables, with about equal parts of tomatoes, peppers and peas and half as many onions. It’s an ever changing recipe, sometimes the peas become broccoli, the basil becomes some other fresh herb (dill, oregano, rosemary, parsley . . . ), the salad dressing may become a balsamic vinaigrette, and the cheese may become small cubes of mozzarella or cheddar.

ASSEMBLING THE SALAD The pasta, tomatoes, pepper and peas can be combined well before the salad will be served.

JUST BEFORE SERVING While the onions can be chopped early they can not be added to the salad until just before serving or all the pasta will taste like onion. Basil will turn brown if chopped early and not coated with something to seal it, so cut and add the basil to the salad with the dressing. Add just enough dressing to moisten everything, you don’t want a puddle in the bottom of the bowl. Gently stir in all the above ingredients then sprinkle the top with crumbled Feta cheese and serve.