Pepperoni Pasta Salad

The Pasta salad from Buns in my Oven was a fun salad to make. Pizza in salad form?  AW yeah!  Pizza flavors and I don't have to heat up the house?  Double yeah!

I saw the recipe, bookmarked it, and the next week they had bags of mini pepperoni on clearance for 50 cents!!! Why? I have no clue.  The expiration date was weeks away.  I'm just kicking myself that I didn't buy more than one bag and freeze them. The following week, they were no where to be seen.  Oh well.  Live and learn.

I did change the proportions of the ingredients from the original recipe to suit our tastes.  Here is how I made the salad.

*about 9-10 oz pasta, (slightly more than half a box) cooked and cooled (I used a mixture of gemelli and medium shells because it was what we had in the pantry.)
*half a jar of whole green olives with pimentos (I used the whole olives because I told Blockette she wouldn't have to eat any olives and I thought they would be easier to pick out.  I just dumped in olives until it looked like enough green throughout the salad.)
*A small can sliced black olives (I would have used whole olives, but I already had the sliced ones in the pantry.)
*About 1 c shredded sharp cheddar
*1/3 c zesty itallian dressing
*whole bag of mini pepperoni
*1/4 of a softball sized red onion, thinly chopped  (They only had the freaky mutant ones at the store.  Use whatever you can find.)

Dump all the ingredients into a bowl and combine.  Let the salad chill in the fridge for a few hours before serving if possible to let the flavors combine.