Summer Pasta Salad

Strictly speaking, it is not yet summer, but it is after Memorial Day and it did get up to 87 today, so I think it counts.

After playing tennis in the heat for an hour or so after work, neither of us were in the mood for hot food. We did not have much in the way of ingredients, but upon Jen's suggestion of a cold pasta salad, I did the best that I could with what we had on hand and ended up with a winner.

Ingredients:

12 oz. of some sort of macaroni product (I scavenged some pasta shells from a box of Mac and Cheez)
1 Anjou pear (largish)
~0.25 cups each of raisins, golden raisins, dried cherries, and dried currants
0.76 cups shredded cheddar cheese

Dressing:
olive oil
apple cider vinegar
cinnamon
allspice
nutmeg
red pepper
salt

I cooked the pasta first and, after draining, put it in a bowl in the fridge to cool. Then I cut the pear into salad-appropriate sized pieces and combined with the dried fruit and dressing.

To make the dressing, I combined equal amounts olive oil and vinegar, added a splash of water to cut it a bit, and then added the spices, which are listed in order of descending amount (i.e. - more cinnamon than allspice). Sorry, I did not measure the amounts, but I was quite generous.

After the pasta cooled down to slightly lower than room temperature (I mixed the pasta in the fridge several times to help it cool faster), I took it out of the fridge and tossed in the fruit, dressing, and cheese.

It turned out quite good ... the dressing was not strong enough to overpower the subtle pear flavor and added just a little bit of tang. The only change I would make would be to perhaps use apple instead of pear (for the texture difference), but Jen disagrees.