Fireworks Salad

1 12-oz package whole wheat rotini
1 12-oz bottle poppy seed salad dressing
1 can whole kernel sweet corn
3 small bunches broccoli
10 baby carrots or 1-2 large carrots
1 tomato

Hands-on Time: About 1 hour 30 minutes

People always seem to show the most concern over my vegetarianism around holidays because they are used to cooking certain traditional dishes and aren't sure what to replace them with. Summer cookouts are fairly easy to do as a vegetarian by substituting veggie burgers and hot dogs for their meat counterparts, using vegetarian baked beans, and enjoying staple side dishes such as potato salad, cole slaw, and fruit salad. However, a good way to enjoy holidays when you are experiencing them as a vegetarian for the first time is to try to be creative and come up with your own new traditions to make the day feel special. With that in mind, I came up with this pasta salad for Independence Day. It uses ingredients that are in season in July and that are meant to evoke the colours and shapes of fireworks.

Prepare the pasta according to package directions. I chose whole wheat pasta for health and rotini for its interesting shape, although bow-tie pasta would also make a good substitute. You might also prefer using spinach-based pastas or multicolour mixes for a more colourful appearance.

Drain the cooked pasta with a colander and pour it into a large serving bowl. Pour one bottle of salad dressing over the pasta and stir to coat. You can use a different type of salad dressing if you prefer, though depending on the colour and consistency of the dressing, it may cover up the colours of the other ingredients. Put the bowl of pasta into the refrigerator to chill as you prepare the other ingredients. You can add one ingredient at a time to the pasta and return the bowl to the refrigerator, and that way the salad should be chilled enough to eat by the time you are finished preparing all the vegetables.

Drain one can of corn and pour it into the colander. Rinse to remove excess salt from the packing liquid. Add the corn to the pasta salad, stir, and return to the refrigerator.

Wash the broccoli and cut the florets off the stalk, separating them into bite-size pieces. Add the broccoli to the pasta salad, stir, and return to the refrigerator.

Use a vegetable peeler to peel thin slices of carrot. Baby carrots are nice because the resulting shreds will be shorter and easier to mix in, but if you have trouble peeling them, you can use larger carrots instead and cut the shreds in halves or thirds. If you use baby carrots, you can make them easier to peel by poking a toothpick into one end to use as a handle to keep your fingers away from the peeler. Just balance the other end of the carrot against the cutting board and peel from top to bottom. Rotate the carrot an eighth to a quarter turn after each slice to get the most slices out of each carrot. Add the carrot shreds to the pasta salad, stir, and return to the refrigerator.

Finally, cut one tomato and discard the seeds. Cube the tomato and add the cubes to the pasta salad and stir. To make your salad look its best, you may want to rearrange some of the broccoli on top by hand so that the stems are poking down into the salad. Serve chilled and keep any unused portion covered in the refrigerator.