When the weather is hot like it is right now — in the mid to high 90s most days here in Denver — pasta salads are one of my favorite meals.  True, cooking the pasta makes the kitchen a little hot, but the resulting meal is fairly cool and refreshing — and it makes plenty of leftovers that don’t require any cooking.

I am not really very big on cooking normally.  I haven’t had any culinary education, and in fact they’d probably be more likely to flunk me than to pass me — I may be able to make a great pasta salad, but really that’s about it.  My claim to fame is having been able to screw up pre-packaged cookie dough.  I don’t think it gets much worse than that.

I may not be otherwise big on the culinary arts, but I am proud of my pasta salad.  I usually don’t follow a recipe, though I used to — all my pasta salads are variations on the first ever recipe for pasta salad that I used to follow, a recipe for a shrimp Caesar pasta salad.  One of my favorites is a cucumber pasta salad, using the Kroger brand Creamy Cucumber dressing — yum yum!

Of course, I suppose the culinary arts institutes could probably give me some more ideas so that I could make more than just pasta salad — but I’m not complaining.  The truth is, hubby usually cooks for me, and he’s pretty good at it — so usually we eat pretty well!

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