I like macaroni salad, and every time I see an unusual recipe for it I take a close look. And if you plan to make a classic Lemon Roast Chicken, this salad would be a great side dish for it. I have sent out many recipes for roasting a chicken, and basting it with lemon juice, olive oil and herbs is a winner every time.
And while your chicken is roasting and you are going to be in the kitchen anyway, basting and watching to make sure it doesn’t get too browned, why not cook some macaroni and put together this wake-up version of a mac salad?
GREEK MACARONI SALAD
Ingredients:
1 cup of macaroni, cooked, drained and cooled
4 medium organic plum tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped
1 can organic garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
1 medium organic red onion, chopped fine
1 can pitted ripe organic olives, drained (16 ounces)
1 package crumbled organic feta cheese (4 ounces)
1 teaspoon sea salt
½ teaspoon ground white pepper
1 organic garlic clove, minced (or to taste)
½ cup extra-virgin organic olive oil
¼ cup fresh organic lemon juice
Combine the cooked macaroni, tomatoes, beans, onion, olives, cheese, salt, pepper and garlic in a mixing bowl.
Whisk together the olive oil and lemon juice together in a smaller mixing bowl. Pour this dressing over the salad and mix lightly. Refrigerate the salad until it is thoroughly chilled.
When I was last at Sunflower Supermarkets, I saw a little box of miniature heirloom tomatoes, which were a little bigger than cherry tomatoes. They were organically produced and I bought them for salads this week. They turned out to be delicious and of course would make a fine substitute for plum tomatoes in this salad.
Heirloom vegetables aren’t as hard to find as they used to be, happily, and if you are a gardener you can find heirloom seeds more than in previous years.
I want to plant tomatoes, and last year I did. I got sturdy vines and blossoms, but that was when I found that I have no more bees in my neighborhood, because the tomatoes never appeared. That means that the tomato flowers weren’t pollinated.
I keep my eyes peeled when I am in my yard, and even though my yard guy planted Lantanas to attract bees, so far I have only seen one single, solitary bee darting about in the pretty pastel Lantana flowers. So I am pessimistic about planting again. But if you want to, check and see if you have bees, that’s all I can say.
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