The week of May 7 in the GFGF theme of Salads, Donna chose Artichokes. Here is the recipe I used for Artichoke Salad if you would like to make it for yourself: click here.
The ingredients: artichokes, black olives, grape tomatoes, onion, extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, garlic, dried oregano, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes.
As you can see from my photo, I made this recipe into a Pasta Artichoke Salad by following her recipe and then just combining it with cooked rotini pasta. We like cold pasta salads in the summer. They are easy to grab for lunch or for a side dish with something grilled for dinner.
The dressing is very good and complimented the ingredients, I doubled the amount as I wasn’t sure how much dressing I would need for the addition of the pasta to the basic artichoke salad. As it turns out, I didn’t need all of it, but it is nice to have the leftover dressing on hand to use for salads or vegetables. The Balsamic vinegar added a nice depth of flavor, the garlic and red pepper flakes jazzed it all up nicely. I used frozen artichokes instead of the canned ones that she used in the original recipe, they just have a better flavor for me, and likewise I used jarred Kalamata olives in place of the black olives in a can. I marinated the onions before adding them to the salad as I’ve said before, raw onions just do not agree with us these days, so I marinate them in the dressing overnight before adding to the salad. This one goes on our Pasta Salad lineup list as it is definitely a repeat.
To see what the others made with their Salad with Artichokes, you can click on the members’ blogs listed here: Peggy, Margaret, Ulrike, Donna, Ellen, and Nancy.
Next up are Salads featuring Spinach, chosen by Peggy, posting date on July 16. If you would like to join in, just leave a link to your post in any of the comment sections of the participants and we will come and see what you made.