"Greek" Pasta Salad

On Wednesday, I started my second (third?) job at Sweetie's old workplace: the Chemistry department. Starting a new position with new people is always awkward, but it's especially so when everyone in the office has seen your vacation photos :o Plus sides: it pays a dollar more per hour than my spot at the Lilly; they actually trust me to do things; and after spending the past few years in libraries with shrinking violets, the staff there are refreshingly (if a tad intimidatingly) extroverted and straight-forward.

At 1, Sweetie came to snoop around his old haunts and cop a free meal "celebrate my first day." I chose The Trojan Horse, half a mile walk away in 90° weather, because if it was easy to get to it wouldn't be special. I blogged about our last visit just around this time last year, which apparently was just after an interview for a job that, if I could comment on my own blog posts to inform my past self, I would tell myself to run away from before I got trapped in a summer of micro-managed hell. But anyway, Sweetie chose the same dish as last time (surprise surprise) and I just ordered the first thing that looked good: a spiral pasta salad with spinach, feta, olives, tomatoes, grilled chicken, and herbed oil on the side.

The salad was amazing. However, they gave me way too much to eat in one sitting, but not enough to bother taking home the leftovers, so I had to abandon some feta cubes and olives. Sadness. But the next day, I set out to the store determined to recreate it for my lunches, now that I'm pretty much employed 9-5 M-F and can't be spending $3 every day on soggy tuna sandwiches at the library cafeteria.


Some of these ingredients are expeeensive, but it's much cheaper than those sandwiches (or the $9 the Trojan Horse wanted for the salad!)

Americanized "Greek" Pasta Salad
(Makes 4 servings)
-1 box spiral pasta for salads (this Rotini Garden Delight with vitamins was on sale for less than the generic!)
-1 tub crumbled feta cheese. Or an honest-to-goodness cube of the real stuff, if you have the $$$ and time for it.
-1/2 a can black olives, or proper green ones if your palate is stronger than mine.
-balsamic vinaigrette
-spinach

After cooking the pasta, I threw it together with everything but the spinach. Done. Much easier than walking half a mile in 90°, no?


Before I leave this morning, I will line a tub with spinach leaves and top it with the salad. The room I'll be working in is freezing because it's where the department servers are stored, so there's no need to refrigerate :x

Now I have to get ready. I'm used to dallying in the mornings because I have the luxury of a car, but the building is on the opposite side of campus from my usual parking spot. And I just paid tons in transportation fees, so I might as well be socially responsible and get my money's worth on the bus.