Warm Pasta Salad

I really liked this recipe by Pioneer Woman for Pasta Salad.

It was 30° outside - not exactly pasta salad weather - so I bookmarked it.

At the grocery a few days later, I was still thinking about it.

So I grabbed some feta.

It snowed that day.

We were all freezing.

So I made it warm and changed the ingredients a little.

It was really, really good.

Warm Feta Pasta Salad

adapted from here

• 1 pound whole wheat pasta
• 2 lemons
• 3 tablespoons olive oil - I don't measure this... so I am guessing.
• 6 ounces feta - crumbled
• 1/2 cup parmesan cheese - shredded
• 1/2 to 1 tablespoon dry herbs
• I used basil and parsley - fresh would be better but the dry was fine
• 4-5 cups sautéed veggies
• I used tomatoes, yellow squash, broccoli, and mushrooms
• 2 cloves of garlic - minced
• salt and pepper to taste

Sauté veggies with 1/2 olive oil.  

Use a largest pan that you think will work.

The goal will be to put the pasta and veggies in one pan at the end.  

If you don't have a big enough pan, a large bowl will be fine.  

I cook each veggie by itself and then add them together at the end.  

It takes a little more time to do them separately, but I like controlling how long each one cooks. 

The mushrooms only brown when they have lots of room to wiggle around.  

You can dump them all together if you want. 

Somewhere close to the end add the garlic.

You want it to cook, but only a few minutes.

Cook pasta as directed reserving about 2 cups of pasta water.  

You want the pasta to be hot, so I wouldn't cook the pasta before the veggies.

I cooked the veggies while Eva napped. 

I warmed them up while the pasta drained later that night.

Once the pasta and veggies are done, and hot combine.  

Add cheeses, herbs, remaining olive oil, and lemon juice from 1-2 lemons.  

I started with one lemon, but used 2 in the end.  

If you are like me and don't measure everything - just add a swirl of olive oil from the bottle.  

Stir it all together.  

Add the pasta water as needed to loosen everything up.

Salt and pepper.

Taste and add more salt, pepper, lemon as needed.

We had this with roasted asparagus as a vegetarian meal.

It would be great with grilled chicken or fish too.

It makes a lot.

I am guessing it would serve 6 easy.

Eva ate it up faster than we could put it on her tray.

We had it cold and hot the next day for lunch.  

It was really good warmed up and awesome cold.

When it was all gone, we were sad.