SO'CS: Day 3

I skipped a couple of recipes from the week I chose and decided to make the Zesty Pasta Salad for dinner last night. It was good, but there was far to much pasta compared to the other ingredients (even the vinaigrette seemed skimpy). I'd make this again with twice as much kielbasa and cheese.

The recipe included a pound of spiral pasta (we used Barilla's pasta Plus, which had fiber, protein and omega-3s, because my dad's diabetic; it's pretty tasty), 8 ounces browned smoked turkey sausage, 4 ounces cubed Cheddar cheese, 2 diced seeded tomatoes and a vinaigrette of 2 1/2 tablespoons each balsamic vinegar and olive oil, salt, pepper, dried thyme, dried basil and garlic powder.

One of the other problems with this recipe was the tomatoes, which my brother doesn't like. My mom was hovering and insisted I pull out a bowl of pasta for him before I added the tomatoes. Easy enough to do, but I it just shows how difficult it can be to please everyone with menus planned by someone else. Maybe these work for Aviva Goldfarb's family, but they're full of ingredients mine won't eat. (Not Aviva's fault, of course. I think my family needs to get less picky. I'll eat just about anything, but I'm surrounded by people who have what borders on food phobias of certain things.)