Easy Pasta Salad -- The Three-Dollar Bowl I Brought to Jess’s Porch When Normal Was the Best We Could Hope For

Semester's done. I packed up my dorm room on Monday — the hot plate wrapped in a towel, the mini fridge unplugged and propped open, the textbooks stacked in a milk crate Dad gave me from the back of his van. Everything I own fits in the trunk of a 2004 Corolla with room to spare. I drove home to Oak Lawn with the windows down because the AC doesn't work and it was seventy-two degrees and May in Chicago is the month the city remembers it's allowed to be beautiful.

I'm home for the summer. Same bedroom I've had since I was born — the small one at the back of the house, with the window that looks out at the Papalardo's fence. Kristin's old room is the guest room now. Matt's old room is Dad's "office," which means it has a desk with bills on it and a TV he watches Cubs games on when Mom takes over the living room. The house hasn't changed. The house will never change. There is something both comforting and suffocating about that, and I haven't decided which feeling wins.

Saw Jess on Thursday. She looked better — not good, but better, which is a distinction you learn to make when someone you love is an addict. Better means she's eaten recently. Better means her eyes are focusing. Better means she laughed once, at something I said about my finals, and the laugh was real. We sat on her porch and I brought over a pasta salad I'd made — rotini, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, Italian dressing, mozzarella cubes. A dollar fifty for the pasta, maybe three dollars total. Summer food. Easy food. The kind of food you eat on a porch in May when you're pretending everything is normal and normal is the best you can hope for.

Babcia Rose had us over for Sunday dinner. The full production — pierogi, kielbasa, sauerkraut, rye bread. Dziadek Wally told a story about working at the steel mill in 1962 that he's told four hundred times and everyone listened like it was new because that's what you do. Mom helped with dishes. Dad fell asleep on the couch by seven. I watched Babcia Rose move around her kitchen, eighty-six years old and still commanding that stove like a general, and I thought: I want to remember this. All of it. The way the kitchen smells, the way Wally laughs, the way Babcia Rose's hands move without hesitation. I want to remember this exactly as it is, because nothing stays exactly as it is.

After Sunday dinner at Babcia Rose’s, with all that love and history and kielbasa still warm in my chest, I came home and made something about as far from a Polish Sunday production as you can get—and that felt exactly right. Some weeks you need the reminder that good food doesn’t have to mean effort, that summer and a porch and pretending everything is normal is its own kind of nourishment. This pasta salad has been my answer to those weeks: ten minutes, one bowl, no ceremony required.

Easy Pasta Salad

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 10 minutes | Total Time: 20 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 12 oz rotini pasta
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1 medium cucumber, quartered and sliced
• 8 oz fresh mozzarella, cut into small cubes
• 1/2 cup sliced black olives (optional)
• 1/3 cup sliced pepperoncini (optional)
• 1/2 cup Italian dressing, plus more to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• Salt and black pepper to taste
• Fresh parsley or basil for garnish (optional)

Instructions

1. Cook the pasta. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook rotini according to package directions until al dente, about 8–9 minutes. Drain and rinse under cold water until completely cooled.
2. Prep the vegetables. While the pasta cooks, halve the cherry tomatoes, slice and quarter the cucumber, and cube the mozzarella. If using olives or pepperoncini, slice and set aside.
3. Combine. In a large bowl, toss the cooled pasta with the tomatoes, cucumber, mozzarella, olives, and pepperoncini if using.
4. Dress it. Pour 1/2 cup Italian dressing over the salad. Add garlic powder, oregano, salt, and pepper. Toss well to coat everything evenly. Taste and add more dressing if needed — pasta absorbs a lot as it sits.
5. Chill or serve. Serve immediately or refrigerate for up to 2 hours before serving. If making ahead, add a splash of extra dressing right before serving to freshen it up. Garnish with fresh parsley or basil if you have it.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 320 | Protein: 12g | Fat: 11g | Carbs: 42g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 480mg