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The weather here has been so incredible lately.  Don’t mind that we had a tornado at our house in March, but aside from that, it has been so beautiful out.  You know the kind of beautiful I’m taking about – you have been outside with the kids all day long when suddenly it’s dinner time.  You haven’t given dinner a second thought because you’ve been so busy making memories with your family.  The kind of beautiful where you have fed your family peanut butter sandwiches the last three nights because it’s suddenly late and they haven’t eaten, it’s bath night and everyone needs to get to bed.  The kind of beautiful where you need something with real flavor real fast.  The real trick – getting all three kids to eat it.  That’s why I love having some old favorites to fall back on like Smithfield Roasted Garlic & Herb Loin Filet and Garden Fresh Pasta Salad.

Our garden is a huge production every year and we are so excited to plant for this year.  There is nothing like heading to the garden to pick fresh vegetables for dinner.  This time we didn’t quite get fresh picked from the garden veggies for our pasta salad but it was almost as good.  Today we spent the entire day outside.  The kids got to play but I was busy getting ready for the garage sale when my cousin said she had to leave to go to dinner.  Ahh!  Dinner – you guys!!!!  I wasn’t really prepared for this.  Because transitions like people leaving leads to the kids suddenly realizing how hungry they are, it gets pretty crazy so I had to think – and FAST!  Then I realized I could whip up dinner and spend the time outside, not inside where they were sure to get crabby.  Let’s get to the recipe.

Garden Fresh Pasta Salad

Ingredients

• One box of tri-colored rotini pasta
• 1-2 cups Shredded Mozzarella Cheese
• 1 Green Pepper
• 1 Cucumber
• Handful of Cherry Tomatoes
• About 50 Slices of Pepperoni
• 1/2 – 1 Cup Zesty Italian Dressing {I’m working on perfecting a homemade recipe, I’ll let you know when I get it right}

Cook the box of pasta according to directions.

While the pasta cooks, get the grill ready.  Once it’s hot, check the package of the Smithfield Roasted Garlic & Herb Loin Filet for fast cooking tips.  Your meat will be done quick, after all, we’re shooting for dinner in under 30 minutes.

While your meat and your pasta are cooking, let’s get the garden fresh veggies ready for the pasta salad.  Wash and dice the green pepper.  Peel {or don’t peel} the cucumber.  Cut into slices, then each piece into fourths.  Wash tomatoes.

Drain noodles.  Tip:  After you drain the noodles, spray them with cold water.  They don’t get hard and all lumped together.  

Now let’s add it all together.  In large bowl, add noodles, veggies, cheese and dressing and mix.  If your salad is ready before the pork loin, stick it in the fridge until you are ready to eat.

Cover and refrigerate leftovers.

As a bonus – this dinner makes fantastic leftovers.  There wasn’t much left but John is taking a pork loin sandwich to work with a side of pasta salad.  He’s pretty happy to have something different for lunch.

Having something that all of the kids will eat isn’t always easy.  Maggie is kind of picky but LOVES pork.  That makes me love that Smithfield® offers a variety of marinated fresh pork products.  I can feel good about it because it’s 100% pork and delicious any way we cook it.  Next time you hit up Walmart, head to the meat section and grab your favorite variety of Smithfield marinated pork for a delicious and easy dinner.

How do you handle dinner on  those oops, it’s time for dinner kind of nights?