I Heart The Mart

All You, the magazine put out by Walmart, has some awesome recipes in it. A lot of them are said to be easy on the wallet as well. I made the Grilled Vegetable-Pesto Pasta Salad on page 71 of the July 26th issue of All You to see if it was indeed as good and as low price as it says it is.

Let me just say, It definitely was all that and more. Not only was it super easy to make, but it cost only about $.80 cents a serving, even less than it says in the magazine. Now, some of that is because I already had a couple of the ingredients, but really, the ones I had are things most others probably have in their homes and pantries as well.

This salad would even taste good as a warm pasta dish, in my opinion. It is so full of flavor! I loved the nice, bright colors and how well it screamed, “summer” with the fresh squash and zucchini. This is absolutely sure to be a hit at any summer potluck you go to and really, just takes minutes to make after you grill the vegetables.

To save money  on the recipe, I swapped out a few of the ingredients. I think that it tastes just as good as the original recipe would, but with less convenience priced ingredients and really, what you are buying that is convenience, isn’t really that hard to make anyways.

Grilled Vegetable-Pesto Pasta Salad

1 Zucchini (81 cents)

1 Yellow Squash (88 cents)

1 Red Bell Pepper ($1.74)

1 Red Onion (59 cents)

1 Tbsp Italian Season (Had on hand)

2 Tbsp Olive Oil (Had on hand)

Salt and Pepper (Had on hand)

3 Cups or about 1 Box of Farfalle (bow tie) Pasta ($1.00)

1 can of Cannellini Beans (white Kidney Beans) (68 cents)

1.7 oz jar of prepared pesto (This was something I substituted. It was around $2.68 for this, but the dry Pesto sauce packets were only $1.66 and I added 1/4 cup of olive oil to it)

1/2 cup fresh grated Romano (Again, I substituted with the Mama Francisco’s I used in the Pizza Bake for flavor and cost effectiveness-came out GREAT!)

1Tsp Lemon Juice (Had on hand)

To make Grilled Vegetable -Pesto Pasta Salad, see the recipe in All You or go to the All You recipe online. When it gets to the section about adding the prepared pesto, just whip up the sauce packet according to the directions for a rub on the back of the packet.