BLT Pasta Salad

I don't know about you guys, but it's been HOT all week here.  I'm talking weather advisories, can barely breathe when you go outside, need multiple pairs of underwear in one day hot.  We normally get heat waves like this, but only for a few days, not a week at a time.  There's supposed to be some big thunderstorms this weekend so hopefully that will cool things down a bit.

In the meantime, it's way too hot to cook.  But... I still need to eat!  I've been seeing a few different variations of this BLT salad on Pinterest and decided to make my own.  It's delicious and the pasta makes it more filling than a regular salad. 

Okay, so you do have to do a little bit of cooking for the bacon and the pasta (yes, it's been too hot to even boil water), but I promise you it's worth it.  I made a huge bowl of this and have been tweaking it every day so that I don't get sick of it, and it just keeps getting better as the flavors get to know each other better.

Plus, I like this recipe because it's easy to adapt and add or remove things you don't like without totally changing the flavors.

Joe's not a huge salad person, but he loved this one! Although to be fair, I think he'd eat anything as long as it involved bacon.  No real recipe for this one, since it's pretty simple: romaine lettuce, tomatoes, bacon, red onion, pasta of your choice.  Toss is all together.  If you know it's all going to be eaten, top with ranch dressing in the bowl.  Otherwise, serve in individual-sized bowls and top with dressing.  As you can see from the photos, to mix it up, I also added some corn and some shredded chicken.  Yum!

If you try this, let me know what you think!