National Dairy Month with Safeway

As we are winding down the school year, the kids have been spending more and more time outdoors. They’ve been asking about going to the park and since we had a minimum day today, I thought it would be a perfect time to pick them up from school and surprise them with a picnic lunch at the park.

Lucky for me this came around the same time I was asked by Safeway to prepare a meal for National Dairy Month. So I headed off to my local Safeway grocery store (Vons) to buy the ingredients I needed to make my favorite picnic dish: Mediterranean Pasta Salad. See my shopping trip here at Intersect.

My local “Safeway” store is “Vons”

Since it’s National Dairy Month, I’ve been thinking about how much dairy we actually consume as a family. I’m pretty sure we eat some kind of dairy with every single meal. We are big cheese lovers so we usually have lots of cheese omelets, grilled cheese sandwiches, and pastas with different types of cheeses. The best thing about this Mediterranean Pasta dish is that it is packed full of flavor. It can be made ahead of time, is very healthy and my kids love it. Plus, it has plenty of my two favorite cheeses in it - Parmesan and feta.

Ingredients:

1 - 16 oz. package of rotini pasta
1 - green pepper, chopped into small pieces
1 - red pepper, chopped into small pieces
1 - cucumber, chopped into small pieces
1 - red onion, chopped into small pieces
1/4 cup olive oil
1 cup sun dried tomatoes, chopped into small pieces
1 cup feta cheese
1 cup Parmesan cheese
salt & pepper to taste

Boil pasta according to directions and drain.

I used garden vegetable rotini.

Mix in the olive oil and set aside to cool completely. If pasta isn’t cooled, the cheese will melt. When cool, mix in all the ingredients with the cheeses being mixed in last. Pasta can be eaten right away or can be refrigerated and eaten the next day. This recipe is so good I usually make it every week during the summer.