Another Great Summer Salad

I love a good pasta salad in the summer. Typically it involves mayo as part of the dressing and in an effort to do something different and lighter, I hit the kitchen tonight after a great day by the pool to make a summer pasta salad.

Here is what I did:

I boiled some lightly oiled and salted water and then cooked some pasta (I used elbow macaroni for it this time, but really just about ANYTHING would work great). When the pasta was nearly done, I tossed in about a cup of frozen shrimp to cook with the pasta in it's last minutes.

While the pasta was cooking, I chopped up a cucumber and several cherry tomatoes (these I just cut into halves). I then doused them with a little bit of olive oil and a spice mixture that I get in Turkey called Olive Sauce (basically it consists of oregano, crushed red chillies, salt and a touch of sumac). I also sprinkled on some dried garlic spice and a wee bit of salt. Just before I drained and rinsed the pasta and shrimp, I decided that there was something lacking from the veggie mixture and I added 1 tbsp of caper berries in vinegar and the juice of half a lemon.

I drained and rinsed the pasta and shrimp in cold water to remove excess oil and to cool them before adding them to veggie mixture. Then I tossed them altogether for a wonderfully spicy and refreshing salad!!

HAPPY EATING!