Every now and then, I get to a point that, I need to clean out the refrigerator. Creating recipes is so fun, but it take up a lot of space in the refrigerator, with leftovers and scraps from those recipes. Normally, most of my scraps go to our guinea pigs, or “the piglets”, Ruby and Opal, but they are small and don’t get a lot of fresh food daily. They get plenty of scraps, 1 cup, twice a day, in addition to their hay and pellets. However, most of the piglets’ scraps are pepper tops and seeds, carrot peels and tops, herb stems, cucumber ends, kale stems, celery tops and bottoms, and really anything that we wouldn’t normally use for meals, except for anything in the onion family. In any case, cleaning the refrigerator often coincides with exhaustion because we’ve spent the day cleaning, running errands, creating and I just want to create a quick, basic meal. The cleanouts aren’t limited to the fridge alone, I’m always looking in the freezers too.

This week, on fridge cleaning day, I found quite a delightful blend of items… frozen fresh pasta, pepper strips, two onion halves, arugula, and half a jar of marinated roasted tomatoes… and I instantly knew what we were having for dinner. I also used some of my pantry staples. Now, the pictured version (below), is only vegetarian, as I used a cheese filled tortellini pasta, but I’ve made some variation of this pasta salad, countless times, and any pasta will do.

Fridge Scraps Pasta Salad (Serves 4-6)

• 1-2 lbs of your favorite Pasta, cooked to package instructions.
• 3 Bell Peppers, any color, cut into strips and into smaller, bit sized pieces
• 1 large Red Onion, sliced and roughly cut
• 2 large Tomatoes on the Vine, Heirloom Tomatoes; roughly cut into bite size pieces
  • or 1 cup mixed cherry, pear and grape tomatoes, halved
• 5 oz Arugula, Spinach, Baby Kale, Chard, or other cooking green; roughly cut
• 1/4 cup Marinated Roasted Tomatoes or Sundried Tomatoes, in oil; roughly cut
• 1/4 cup sliced Kalamata Olives

Dressing

• 4 Tbsp Garlic Confit Olive Oil
• 2 fresh Garlic Cloves, peeled and crushed or minced
• 4 Tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
  • or Red Wine Vinegar, White Balsamic Vinegar, Apple Cider Vinegar
• 3 Tbsp generic All Purpose Salt-Free Seasoning, like Mrs. Dash
  • or Italian Seasoning
• 1 tsp Ground Black Pepper
• 1/2 tsp Salt

Additional Add-Ins

• 1/2 large Cucumber, cut into quarters and thinly sliced
• 1 large Carrot, halved and thinly sliced
• 1 large or 3-4 small Celery Rib(s), thinly sliced
• 1-15 oz can or 12 oz frozen bag (thawed) Artichoke Heart Pieces
• 1-15 oz can Chickpeas, drained

Put it together!

1. In a separate bowl, combine your dressing ingredients, set aside
2. Start preparing your pasta, according to package instructions.
3. While your pasta is cooking, in the largest bowl you own, prepare your veggies, as outlined above. Feel free to use all the veggies, what ever veggies you have in your fridge, and omit any veggies you don’t enjoy. This is how we enjoy pasta salad.
4. Once your pasta is done, add to your veggie mix, add your dressing and mix. The greens will wilt some, from the heat of the cooked pasta.

Enjoy!