This past week has been a little crazy, so my Sunday evening culinary adventure didn't get a chance to take place until Monday. I was planning on making the Greek-style baked ziti (Bittman 535) but was a bit crunched for time so instead I skipped the baking and used (more or less) the same ingredients to make a pasta salad with a lemon vinagrette (Bittman 201).
I've made pasta salad before, though at that time it was a lot more haphazard; I just threw in whatever I had around. This time I actually went for a coherent (Greek) feel.
The first step is to make some pasta. I was looking for ziti. They didn't have it it whole wheat, which I prefer, so I went for 1 lb of whole wheat penne instead. Prepare that as directed. When it's done drain it and toss it in some olive oil to prevent the noodles from sticking. Then grate about 1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese over it, and set it aside to cool
While your pasta is cooking, you should be chopping. In fact, the chopping probably starts before you even put the pasta on the stove; there's a lot of it. Cut into bite-sized pieces 6 roma tomatoes, 1 red onion, 1 seedless cucumber, 20-ish pitted kalamata olives, and 1 orange bell pepper. Also carefully chunk (or if you prefer, crumble) 1/2 lb feta cheese.
You'll also need to prepare some salad dressing. I made, essentially, a single batch of Bittman's lemon vinagrette. A word to the wise: squeeze your lemons first. It's really hard to fish lemon seeds out of a cloudy liquid. I used juice from 2 lemons (maybe 1/3 cup), 1/2 cup EVOO, 2 cloves garlic, crushed, and 1/4 tsp each of black pepper, red pepper, and oregano. This all gets whisked thoroughly.
Ingredients should be added to the pasta in reverse-fragileness order. Start with the peppers, olives, onions, and dressing. Mix well. Then mix in the tomatoes. Then gently mix in the feta cheese, which will inevitably still crumble a bit.
This recipe turned out well. I'm a big fan of veggies and pasta and not the biggest salad dressing enthusiast, though, so others may want significantly more dressing. The Parmesan cheese seemed unnecessary; the dish was plenty savory already and it was completely overwhelmed when the big kid flavors came out to play. I might also tone down the feta next time. I already had halved Bittman's suggested amount (he suggests 1 lb feta to 1 lb pasta, which seems insane). I think more appropriate would be maybe 3 oz of chunks and another 3 oz crumbled into the dressing.
In terms of servings, you should always remember that a pound of pasta, turned into pasta salad, makes a lot. This would probably make a main course for six hungry people. Maybe even eight.
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