Cold Main Salad
This is a complete meal by itself and keeps in the frig for several days (as long as you don’t add oil to it), so you can make some and then not have to cook at all for a couple days. The proportions are about ¼ cooked pasta (or cooked whole grains), ½ veggies, and ¼ protein rich foods. This is the main dish I cook in the summer.

For the veggies I look for pre-chopped ones at the store or use a food processors. Use some combination of raw green or red peppers, raw carrots, raw celery, frozen or canned artichoke hearts, capers, raw or blanched asparagus, raw or blanched green beans, small tomatoes (there are cherry and a couple other kinds you don’t have to chop), frozen petit peas, frozen corn, raw green or red onions, olives, a jar of roasted red peppers.

For protein, I usually use either black, red kidney, or garbanzo canned beans. Sometimes I put in feta cheese or blue cheese in the salad. I suppose you could use cooked cubed chicken or cooked shrimp as the protein source but I never have.

For dressing, I use rice vinegar (get the unseasoned kind) or wine vinegar and whatever seasoning seem to go with the rest of the dish. If you want, you can add a little olive oil or flaxseed oil and/or some nuts when you serve it (but don’t add in advance or it will not keep well).

If you look in health food oriented cookbooks (especially those with an international selection of recipes) for main dish or pasta salads, you can get lots of ideas of combinations to try in this recipe. Sometimes you have to decrease the carbs and increase the vegetables and/or protein from the amounts given in the recipes to make the dish healthy. Two books that I particularly like are “Pasta and Other Special Salads” by Ceil Dyer and Simply Healthful Pasta Salads by Andrea Chesman.

Sesame Ginger Orzo Pasta Salad
This is a little more complicated than most cold salads I make but I include it as it makes a great party or potluck dish. Everybody I know who tries it likes it. Cook 1 package orzo. Mix with 3 T sesame seed oil, ½ c rice vinegar, 1 T sherry vinegar, ½ t grated orange peel, 1 t soy sauce, 2 T green onions sliced in food processor, 1 t minced ginger from a jar, ½ t crushed garlic from a jar, ¼ t crushed red pepper flakes, 1 t black pepper, 1 T sugar, 2 T chopped cilantro, 3 c pre-shredded carrots, 2 c raisins.