At the very least this dish proves that you can put just about anything you have on hand in Pasta Salad and wind up with a winner…even if it does sound vaguely like something MacGyver would make out of old snowblower parts.

Anyhoo, in this particular case we’d had quite a few odds ‘n ends lying around that we really wanted to eat – Sweet Chicken Apple Sausage, Farfalle, Radishes, etc. – but, though they sounded great individually, they didn’t really seem like they went together all that well until we struck upon the whole Pasta Salad idea.

We wound up with what is truly a greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts dish with a deep well of flavors that pleases on many levels. There’s body and a satisfying bite provided by the mini Farfalle pasta. The Sausage adds sweetness and meatiness, and the radishes are crunchy and spicy. Add a sprinkle of diced Green Onions, a little chopped fresh Parsley and a zesty Lemon dressing and you’ve got a fabulous and unorthodox Pasta Salad recipe. Go figure…

Everything but the kitchen sink:

• 1 package (12 oz) Mini Farfalle, cooked Al Dente in salted water, rinsed in cool water and drained.
• 4 Sweet Chicken Apple Sausage, sliced thin and sauteéd over medium-high heat until slightly browned. Allow to cool.
• 8 oz Mushrooms, sliced (we used a package of the presliced jobbies).
• 2-3 Green Onions (Scallions to the hoity toity among you), diced.
• 4 or 5 Radishes, thinly sliced.
• A handful of Fresh Italian Parsley, finely chopped.
• Juice of one Lemon.
• 1/4 cup Olive Oil.
• Salt & Pepper.
• Parmesan Cheese for sprinkling.

Der Instrukshuns:

• For the Lemon Dressing whisk the Lemon Juice and Olive Oil together and season it to taste with Salt & Pepper.
• In a largish bowl toss the the Pasta, Sausage, Mushrooms, Radishes, Lemon Dressing, and the Chopped Parsley. Garnish with the Green Onion and the Parmesan Cheese. Eat eat eat.

Thoughts (yes, we have them from time to time):
Though the Chicken & Apple Sausages can be a little pricey (ours were about $5 for a package of 4) the rest of the ingredients are very affordable and more than offset their high price. We feel that this is a case where sacrificing the budget a bit on one of the ingredients pays off with big flavor rewards.

Also, the Lemon Dressing can be a little tart depending on your lemons. For most of our batches of this salad the Chicken & Apple Sausages were sweet enough to add balance to the flavors. But if you need a touch more sweetness in your dressing you could add a little honey or sugar or even substitute Seasoned Rice Vinegar. Just be sure to adjust your Lemon Juice and Salt accordingly.

Giada recently had a deliciously different and simple salad on her show that needed only sliced fresh Mushrooms, shaved Parmesan, and a very simple Lemon Juice & Olive Oil dressing. It was so elegant and fresh tasting that we loved it right away, and leaving the Mushrooms raw gave it a lighter than air texture.

Of course it’s us, so we immediately began to think of ways that we could tweak it by adding a little of this or that. Julie right away struck upon the idea of adding Orecchiette pasta, White Beans, and some sweet little Green Peas to build it up a bit and our new favorite summer Pasta Salad was born.

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So, we had/have this favorite dressing from a popular brand and we were ordering cases of it and they were very expensive and we got to thinking…what’s in this incredibly delicious dressing that we love so much and can’t live without, anyway?

Turns out, not too much. Apple Cider Vinegar, Tamari, Sesame Oil, Sesame Seeds, and Olive Oil to be exact. Ok, that and shiitake mushroom bits but honestly they don’t really do much for the flavor as far as we can tell. And they used Canola Oil, which has no flavor whatsoever so why bother? Read more »

This is an über-dooper easy dinner salad that’s a fun twist on chef’s salads. The only real trick with this one is that you’ve got to be ready to serve it when the mushrooms are done sautéing, else-wise you’ll serve a warm, cheesy, steaming pile of mushy lettuce and mushrooms, not-so-very-much-good… Read more »

So, we were supposed to bring a salad to dinner and Mom & Dad’s. The bummer was that we didn’t have any lettuce or greens of any kind. What we did have, though, was bunches of fresh beans from our trusty CSA. And we knew they were delicious because we’ve been getting them for a couple of weeks. We threw in some of the fresh Basil we’ve been getting and had the start of a rockin’ summer salad… Read more »