Whole Wheat Macaroni Salad with Dill

There will surely be a few more BBQs to attend before the quickly approaching end of summer, and macaroni salad is always a hit. We made this for the pie-eating contest and ended up with tons extra and ended up eating it for days afterwards. You see, when we were factoring in how much food we’d need for the two or three dozen people we were expecting, we completely forgot that many people might not have a lot of room left in their bellies after eating a whole pie at warp speed. And, although it’s sometimes iffy, everyone who committed to it showed up with a potluck item, which meant we had tons of food. We got to enjoy a lot of leftovers.

So, if you’ve got one more potluck to attend this summer, you can whip up this macaroni salad. Otherwise, stick it in the recipe log for next summer or for a night when you cook burgers indoors during winter.

Ingredients

1 pound whole wheat elbow macaroni

1 carrot, finely chopped

1 stalk celery, finely chopped

1/2 sweet onion, finely chopped

3 green onions, finely chopped

a few stalks of fresh dill, finely chopped (if you don’t have this, finely chop a pickle and toss it in there)

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1/2 cup milk (some recipes call for buttermilk, but I never have this in the house and just used regular milk, figuring the vinegar in the recipe would do the trick)

1 tablespoon vinegar

1 teaspoon prepared yellow mustard

1-2 tablespoons white sugar, depending on how sweet you like your macaroni salad

1 pinch cayenne pepper

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 garlic clove, minced

freshly ground pepper

Directions

Prepare macaroni according to package directions, following with a cool rinse to stop the cooking. Toss the carrot, celery, and onions in with the cool pasta. .

In a separate bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, milk, vinegar, mustard, sugar, cayenne pepper, garlic, salt and pepper. Pour the dressing over the macaroni/veggie combo, and stir with a spatula to thoroughly distribute the dressing. Cover and refrigerate for several hours if you’ve got the time, but it will be darn tasty if you don’t.

If you’re serving this salad at a BBQ or other outdoor event, try to leave a portion of it inside in the fridge while serving the other portion, as this does spoil. The leftovers are even better after sitting in the fridge overnight, so you don’t want to put the whole bowl out in the sun and have the extras go to waste.

[Via http://measuringspoons.wordpress.com]