Someone somewhere mentioned pasta salad the other day and my tiny brain decided WE MUST EAT THAT NOW!

So, let there be pasta salad:

• Pasta (I used penne cause that’s what was in the cupboard)
• Olive oil
• Herbs & spices (I went with tarragon, “salad sprinkle,” ground black pepper, oregano, garlic powder, a little red pepper, minced onion, and a little sea salt)
• Nutritional yeast (gives it a “Parmesan” tang)
• Garbanzo beans (chickpeas)
• Tomato
• Olives
• Red onion
• Artichoke hearts
• White wine vinegar

I dumped the herbs and spices in a little bowl and coated it in a lot of olive oil. Like, think pile of herbs at the bottom of olive oil pond. Let it sit while you cook the pasta.

I cooked the pasta to a minute under al dente and then used the last minute to figure out how to drain enough water out without burning myself, flooding the kitchen, or dumping all the pasta down the sink. If you’re better at this than I am, do your normal thing. Drained, I threw the pasta in a bowl of ice water to hang out while I cut up tomatoes, cut up olives, and drained the can of artichoke hearts.

While the pasta was cooking, I drained the can of garbanzo beans, cut a little of the red onion into nearly-minced bits and warmed the two on “low” with a spoonful of the olive oil mixture.

Final step: Put the cold (redrained) pasta in a serving bowl with the tomatoes, olives, artichoke hearts, and garbanzo beans/onion mixture. Sprinkle on a “small handful” of nutritional yeast. Dump in the olive oil and herbs. Splash on some white wine vinegar. Mix. Serve. Eat. Yum.

I’d include a picture but I *may* have eaten the rest of it while typing this so now it’s not so photogenic. Sorry.