Tomato Basil Mozzarella Pasta Salad

For the last two years, I've been searching for the perfect recipe for a pasta salad. My usual method of rating how good my food turns out is by seeing how much is left once the party is over, but I'll be honest, this recipe was so good that I sorta hid the food away so that I would still have leftovers. (And, my god, did it taste better the next day or what.)Anyways, I'll stop dilly-dallying and get to the point. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients

• 1 box of rotini pasta, preferably the colored ones because why not…they're definitely the cuter ones
• 1 bag of shredded Parmesan
• 1 container (7 oz.) of mozzarella cheese, small cheese balls
• 1 jar of sundried tomatoes
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 1 little boxey thingy of fresh basil
• Cherry tomatoes
• Assorted types of olives, chopped into little pieces

Procedure

1. Boil the pasta, following the directions on the box
2. Meanwhile, in a little food processor thing, make a sundried tomato pesto by grinding the entire jar of sundried tomatoes and three cloves of garlic and a couple leaves of basil. (Alternatively, since the basil leaves will be later sliced and just added in the pasta salad, this is a good chance to grind up and use the stems.
3. Keep this pesto aside and chop the olives. You can just slice them or cut them in quarters or something if you get pitted ones, but I accidentally got ones with the pit in them, so they ended up being assorted sizes after the pitting process.
4. Slice the cherry tomatoes in half andddd quarter the mozzarella cheese balls too.
5. Chop the fresh basil too, after rinsing it up
6. By now your pasta should be ready, so drain it and rinse it in cold water.
7. And for the best and easiest part of all, mix everything together: the pasta, the sundried tomato pesto, the olives, the tomatoes, and the mozzarella cheese and the parmesan cheese.
8. As a bonus one time, I marinated chicken overnight in basil pesto with a spoon of sour cream, and then kabob-ed the chicken pieces and broiled it for 14 minutes (flipping them over at 7 minutes), and that turned out to be a super delicious decision.

Either way, whether you decide to take the vegetarian approach or adding the chicken, I hope you enjoy this pasta salad as much as I did J