looking for food that won’t kill me

This is a tasty salad that is great for lunch and hearty enough for dinner.

For the salad:

1 can artichoke hearts in water chopped

6 sun-dried tomatoes sliced

1 sliced English cucumber

1 box pasta spirals

1/2 cup chopped kalamata olives

freshly grated Parmesan cheese

cook pasta, cool and add all ingredients except the cheese.

Dressing:

1 cup low sodium V-8

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/4 cup lemon juice

2 minced garlic cloves

1/2 cup loosely packed fresh basil leaves

salt and pepper

Put the above in a food processor, blender or magic bullet and spin until dressing like. Add salt, pepper, and oil if needed to get to the right consistency. Pour over pasta and add cheese. The great thing about this is you can add whatever you want to this. Broccoli, Pine Nuts and Mushrooms are great additions.

I recently needed a dish for a holiday potluck and came across an olive salad.   It basically had one kind of olive, some vinegar, parsley and olive oil which sounded kinda boring.   Below is what I ended up making and it seemed to go over pretty well.   This is a great alternative to those mayo heavy pasta salads that folks usually bring to the office potluck.    I don’t have to mention that you should use pitted olives right?  Unless you don’t really care for your co-workers that much, or you need to see who paid attention in safety class.

1 jar extra large whole green olives (the largest you can find)

2 cans of extra large whole black olives

1/2 jar of kalamata olives

1/2 cup olive oil

1/4 cup balsamic or red wine vinegar

1/4 cup chili powder

1-2 cloves of diced garlic (start with one and taste it, add another if you want)

1 English cucumber diced

1 can artichoke hearts chopped

1/2 of a very thinly sliced red onion

low fat feta

pepper

give the olives a rough chop so they are different shapes and sizes being careful not to chop them to small, they are the main attraction.   Dump in all the other stuff and mix well or dump in everything but the feta and sprinkle the feta on top for those that want some.   serve room temperature or cold