30 Days Gluten Free Quick & Easy Meals: Day 26 - Sara's Bruschetta Pasta Toss

Welcome to 30 Days Gluten Free Quick & Easy Meals!

Today's post is written by Sara author of the blog, The Messy Chef.

Day 26 - Sara's Bruschetta Pasta Toss


One thing I love about summer is spending time outside enjoying the beautiful Colorado weather. Needless to say, that usually doesn’t include spending time in a hot kitchen with the oven on. Fresh salads are a great way to avoid turning on that oven. However, they can get boring. Sometimes the thought of eating one more bite of lettuce makes me sick. The problem is that salads are a wonderful way of getting your multiple servings of fresh veggies in a day.

Instead of that boring lettuce, try using a gluten free pasta. Shop around to see which kind agrees with your tastes and texture preferences. I personally love quinoa pasta – its probably the closest to wheat pasta that I’ve found. Recently I created a Bruschetta recipe post. Bruschetta is simply an Italian style salsa, which incorporates fresh veggies, some herbs and garlic on top of a piece of toast. I figured that an interesting concept would be to make this Italian salsa into a pasta salad. So, while you will have to turn on your stove to make the pasta, this is a quick, light, wonderfully versatile dish that you can bring to picnics, potlucks, or any family get-togethers (or just enjoy on a hot summer day from the comfort of your own home).


Sara's Bruschetta Pasta Toss

4 roma tomatoes, diced
1 zucchini, diced
8 leaves fresh basil, chopped
2 clove garlic, minced
4 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp white wine vinegar
1-2 tsp sea salt
1 box gluten free rotini pasta

Directions

1. Prepare the pasta according to package directions. Rinse with cold water. Drain and set aside.
2. In a large bowl (to cut steps, use whichever bowl you plan on serving your pasta salad in), mix together tomatoes, zucchini, basil, garlic, olive oil, white wine vinegar, and sea salt.
3. Refrigerate for 15 minutes (this will allow the flavors to marinate).
4. Toss the pasta with the tomato mixture. Either serve or refrigerate.
   

About Sara:

The Messy Chef was created after an unhealthy lifestyle caused cancer for her husband and other health problems for her. Instead of getting depressed about having to change how she ate, she saw this as an opportunity and challenge to recreate their favorite “normal” dishes into healthy alternatives using fresh, whole ingredients. Her family and friends started asking for advice and recipes and The Messy Chef was born. It was created for all of the messy chefs out there who want to cook healthy but are afraid or just don’t know how. It’s for people who are sick of being sick. It’s for people who have been on diet after diet and continually fail. This way of cooking and eating isn’t a diet, it’s truly a lifestyle. Healthy is NOT low or no fat and tasteless. Healthy is delicious and Messy is the new black!

*********

Stay tuned for Day 27 of 30 Days Gluten Free Quick & Easy Meals. Tomorrow will feature a delicious summer recipe by Vicky author of Gluten Free Sweets at Vicky's.