Pasta Salad

Pasta salad seems to be the perfect summer meal-it can be made ahead, and really should be made ahead, it is easy to take on a picnic or eat on the deck. I found this great recipe that I am sure will become a favorite! The entire family seemed to like it. We even had company-a 6 and 4 year old and they ate it! So it is a keeper.

The recipe suggested using Agave syrup instead of sugar and I just happened to have this on hand. My dad had picked up some seeds for me awhile back and grabbed this bottle of Agave syrup for me to try-he knows that I like things like that. I haven't known quite what to use it for, until now. I was also a little leery of using it becasue I have not had the best results with Stevia, another alternative sweetener. My results with Agave syrup were great in this pasta salad recipe! And the bit of Agave syrup I tasted on my finger was quite tasty. I look forward to trying it in smoothies, if I ever get my blender fixed...but that is another topic...

This is my favorite whole wheat pasta. I had tried several different brands of whole wheat pasta with not so pleasant results. Then I grabbed a bag of this at Trader Joe's awhile back and it is a winner! And at $1.29 a bag (the bag is one pound), it is affordable. In fact I have about 10 bags of it in my pantry right now, some are fusilli, like in my photo, and others are penne rigate. Don't I sound pretty smart using pasta terms like fusilli and rigate! I actually just learned those smart sounding terms from the links I included with each term and decided to use them, just to impress myself.