TORTELLINI SALAD
07 june 2006

meg & i have been trying to do a dinner get-together for quite some time, & now that she's taken on the task of cooking for her entire family this summer while she's home from school, she's trying out a bunch of recipes -- including this tortellini salad, which we adapted for meatlessness & whipped up in under half an hour!

INGREDIENTS
16 ounces cheese-filled tortellini
1 green bell pepper, thinly sliced
1 red bell pepper, julienned
1/2 small red onion, julienned
1/2 cup sliced black olives
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
1/4 cup olive oil
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest, minced
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 tablespoons ground walnuts
1 tablespoon honey

METHOD
cook pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water until al dente. drain & cool under cold water. refrigerate until chilled.

prepare the dressing in a small bowl by whisking together the olive oil, lemon zest, lemon juice, walnuts, & honey. refrigerate until chilled.

in a salad bowl, combine pasta, peppers, red onion, & olives. add lemon dressing & feta cheese, toss & serve.

DEVIATIONS & OBSERVATIONS
meg said that when she made this for her family, she wound up making more dressing than the recipe called for -- but since it was just the two of us, we halved the ingredients for the salad part but just made the same amount of dressing. i'm also fairly certain i stayed with the full 1/2 cup of feta cheese, but that's b/c i happen to know for a fact that salads can never have too much cheese. it's science.

so the thing about this recipe was that it was RIDICULOUSLY easy. like, i almost felt afterwards that it'd be cheating to put it up -- it was that easy! but how could i rob you of the opportunity to try it for yourselves? b/c seriously, you should. i don't even LIKE feta cheese & i thought this was pretty delicious.

of course, i should mention that this was made that much easier b/c meg zested the lemon & cut the onion, &, uh, made the dressing. & also we made fun of rachael ray's inability to hold her liquor (b/c i'm pretty sure that she's 100% wasted by the end of every episode of "$40 a day"), although from what i understand, most people can't stand her so i just feel kinda bad for her. i mean, she might be giggly & overly perky, but at least she's not a big jerk like bobby flay!

it's good enough that i'll be making this in a couple weeks for one of the MANY celebratory potluck lunches my office is having this summer!

"Tortellini Salad" from meg, who got it off allrecipes.com.