Chunky Macaroni Salad

As I posted yesterday, we spent some time in the kitchen this past weekend experimenting with some new dishes.  One of those was a variation of the Classic American Macaroni Salad.  I woke up at 2:00 AM on Saturday morning and got to work on this.  While my neighbors slumbered peacefully, I was hard at work on getting all the ingredients just right for my new macaroni salad recipe.  Below is a pictorial of that work so early in the morning.

We started with a one pound box of Barilla Elbow macaroni.  This is the classic style of pasta this is used to make macaroni salad.  You could substitute bowties or penne - whatever you like.  But for this recipe, we will use Elbow.

The pasta was cooked for seven minutes and then drained and rinsed in cold water.

While the pasta was draining I cut up the cucumber, peppers, onions and tomatoes and placed them in Ziploc bags and placed them into the refrigerator.

I laid down some paper toweling in the refrigerator.

Then I placed the rinsed and drained pasta still in the strainer on top of the paper toweling.  I did not want to assemble the salad just yet, so I left the pasta like this in the strainer for the remainder of the night.

Later in the morning, once all the neighbors were up and starting their weekends, I assembled the salad.  I combined the cucumbers, peppers and onions altogether in a stainless steel bowl.

In a separate bowl, I mixed the pasta, mayonnaise and Ranch Dressing.

Lastly, I combined the cucumbers, peppers, onions and tomatoes with the pasta and the remaining ingredients and I ended up with a huge bowl of the most delicious macaroni salad you have ever tasted.  I named this Chunky Macaroni Salad because all of the dice in this recipe is large.  Refer to it as a "large dice" or "rough chop."  You want the veggies to be in large chunks rather then finely chopped.  This was a huge hit with  Steven, Bob and Bette.  Definitely a dish I would serve to company.

If your weekend plans include spending some time in the kitchen or getting together for a summer barbecue with friends, check out this recipe under the Food & Recipe Tab.  I think you will be glad you did.