This week’s Surviving Sodexo features a dish made by Allison Plotnik ’18, a copy editor for The Brandeis Hoot. Plotnik, a vegetarian who prefers not to eat “just cold kidney beans,” mixes her protein with hot vegetables and pasta to make what she likes to call Hot Pasta Salad. Below is a delicious dish for vegetarians who are looking for a salad to warm them up on a cold day.

Ingredients
1 bowl of pasta
tomato sauce
spinach
shredded cheese
chickpeas
kidney beans

Recipe
Fill a bowl with pasta from the pasta bar. Add one spoonful of tomato sauce and bring the bowl to the hot-food section to find that day’s cooked vegetables. Plotnik finds that the dish turns out best “when they have cooked carrots and cooked broccoli” available. After adding cooked vegetables, go to the salad bar. Place one tong-ful of spinach, a spoonful of chickpeas, a spoonful of kidney beans and a little bit of shredded cheese to the pasta. For the best results, Plotnik suggests putting the cheese next to the hot tomato sauce so that it melts into the rest of the dish. “The rest is variable, because it depends on what looks good in the salad bar and what vegetables are cooked.” Once all the ingredients have been added, mix everything together with a fork. Enjoy!