I'm no gourmand by any means--in fact, I tend to be fairly indifferent towards food--but I know my way around the kitchen enough to keep myself alive and eat better than instant noodles and canned soup. Like the recipes above, this one is quite easy, though it differs in that it makes heavy use of vinegar. Obviously if you don't like vinegar (you monster) this isn't for you. I could write a flowery description of how it's a 'taste of vinegar-soaked heaven!' and 'yum-a-licious!' and other painfully saccharine phrases that you see with most recipes these days, but that's not my style. It's sour, it's flavorful, it's easy, you'll like it.
I tend to just eyeball things when cooking, so don't take the quantities as gospel--modify them however seems best to you. The only ingredients I have hard numbers for are the vinegar and olive oil and I recommend sticking to those amounts. It usually takes me about 15 minutes to make, about as long as it takes to boil a pot of pasta. And if you can limit yourself to one bowl (I cannot), it makes about six to eight servings.
16-oz (450g) box of rotini
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped carrot
1/2 cup chopped red bell pepper
1/2 cup chopped onion
4-oz can of sliced black olives
1 cup vinegar (apple cider is my favorite)
3/4 cup olive oil
Parmesan cheese and black pepper to taste
(Optional) Tabasco sauce
Put a pot on to boil, add pasta. Cook. Told you this would be easy.
Pour vinegar and olive oil into a large bowl--you don't have to bother mixing them because the vinegar will soak into the noodles overnight. Chop vegetables, keeping carrots and celery apart and adding the others to the bowl. Drain and add olives. Add black pepper, Tabasco, and any other spices you might want--this gives everything a chance to blend a bit with the dressing before you add the noodles. My experience is to be fairly stingy the spices; I usually go with ten dashes of Tabasco and maybe a tablespoon of pepper for the whole batch.
Steam carrots and celery for 3 to 5 minutes. This will cook them partially but still leave an al dente crunch. You can use some fancy steaming pots but I just toss them in a frying pan with a couple tablespoons of water and put a lid on. Add to bowl when finished.
By now the noodles should be almost done. Drain and then mix everything together. Don't be intimidated if what you make looks more like a soup than a salad--as above, the vinegar will soak into the noodles and vegetables, leaving only the oil behind. Chill, preferably overnight. Mix again before serving and add parmesan to taste.