Food Network Magazines Pimento Pasta Salad is perfect for summertime cookouts and potlucks.

Happy happy Wednesday! I hope everyone had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend.  My weekend was not only full of food but also of gratitude toward our men and women who paid the ultimate price for our freedom. Thank you too all our service members, here and abroad.

I don’t know about you, but it sure was nice in Utah this weekend even though we did get some rain on Saturday. It didn’t dampen any plans we had to attend barbecues or time sitting by the pool. I had made 8 pounds of my Black Bean & Corn Salsa for two events (and yes, I really did weigh it), my Pineapple Deviled Eggs for another, but needed a salad side dish as well. I found this one in my June issue of Food Network Magazine. The magazine has a giant burger on the cover but it also had a little booklet inside “50 Salad Side Dishes.”  I picked the Pimento Pasta Salad to take to my nephew’s house this past Monday.  It looked amazing!

As usual, I didn’t follow the recipe to the letter. To start with, I didn’t use the elbow macaroni the recipe called for. I chose to use cellentani pasta noodles. They are easily found in the dry bulk foods section at my local WinCo grocery store and I found their curly q shape to be quite festive.  Barilla also carries this shape if you don’t have a Winco near by. I thought a fun and unique shape was just what this salad called for. I also used light mayonnaise rather then regular to cut the calories a bit. I also added diced green chiles for some zing and cut the amount of scallions in half. It just works better for me this way.