Pesto Salad

This my final salad for this blogging marathon. I used store bought basil pesto for this salad. But it can be made in a snap at your kitchen. Check out my spinach-basil pesto recipe! I made this salad with olives and cherry tomatoes. It turned out to be very similar to my whole-wheat pasta salad except for the pesto dressing. You could make a whole batch of pesto and store it for weeks and make all kind of favorite pastas and pizzas with it. This was my quickie lunch this afternoon..

Ingredients
Whole grain pasta - 1 cup
Olives - 5
Cherry tomatoes
Basil pesto - 1 tablespoon
Lemon juice - 1 teaspoon
Salt and black pepper to taste
Fresh parmesan cheese

Directions
Cook the pasta according to the manufacturer's instructions. Since I do not like my salads to be warm, I rinse the pasta in cold water after cooking. Drain the water from the cooked pasta.

Combine the pesto, salt, pepper and lemon juice to the cooked pasta and mix well.

Add the cherry tomatoes and sliced olives to the pasta.

Plate the salad and add some freshly grated parmesan cheese on top..

Enjoy!

Check out the bloggers doing the Blogging Marathon, along with me..
30 Minutes Meals:Priya Mahadavan, Pavani,
Seven Days of Salad: lla
For Ongoing 7 Events: Priya Suresh, Suma Gandlur,Harini,
Kids Friendly: Vatsala, Jay,Kamalika
Seven Days of Rice: Veena,PriyaVaasu,Padma Rekha