I was getting ready to make a pasta salad today and realized I was out of relish !! OH NO! Fortunately like many refrigerators mine was overloaded with almost empty jars of pickles and olives so I thought, hmmm why not a muffalatta type relish ( a muffalatta is a New Orleans type of sandwich)

Step 1: The Fixings

this ia NOT a recipe ! The ingredients you use will be the ones your family enjoys, I have some sweet gerkin pickles, some dill pickle chips, different olives and pimentos

Step 2: The Machine

This is my latest favorite kitchen gadget, sorry I don't know its name, I got it at the thrift store for $2.95us, it has interchangable pieces to make it an immersion blender, a power whisk and a medium sized food processor

Step 3: The Easy Part

You can see where this is going I hope, place all your left over pickles in the processor and chop it as fine or course as you prefer. I recycled an olive jar for storage after washing it well, microwaving it and rinsing with a little vodka (which I also recycled)

Step 4: The Pasta Salad

I rely a lot on ready available dressings for salads, in this case a combination of mayonnaise, ranch salad dressing, horse radish sauce and a creamy jalapeno sauce, the relish from above and a box of big pasta noodles

Step 5: Build the Salad

TV shows always say to season the pasta water, then they just add salt ! I like to use salt and both garlic and onion powder. Bring a large pot of water to a hard boil add in your seasoning and the pasta, let it cook until its done to how YOU like it, in my case thats a little past al' dente' but not really soft.

While the noodles are cooking mix up your dressing. I don't measure, I go by looks and taste so all measurements are approximate, a good size cooking spoon of relish, 1/2cup of mayo, 1/2 cup of ranch dressing, 3 tablespns of both horseradish sauce and jalapeno creamy sauce, salt and pepper to taste

drain and cool your pasta under cold running water (If your running short on time) or put it in the freezer for a couple minutes. Mix the pasta into the dressing and chill before serving

(update 10/14/11) I'm glad I did this "ible" since it means I have the "recipe" . My picky son-N-law asked me yesterday to make some more of that AWESOME pasta salad and today it got FEATURED !