Tomato season

With the bounty of tomatoes hitting the markets, I'm always looking for new ways to use them in a recipe.
The other day I happened to be reading Melissa Clark's food column A Good Appetite for the NY Times where she includes a short video of Pasta With Burst Cherry Tomatoes and that was enough for me to head straight to the kitchen to see what I had on hand.

Turns out I had plenty of tomatoes, lots of arugula, some mint and a few scallions. After a quick stop to my favorite Italian market DiBruno Brothers, I purchased a fresh and tasty batch of ricotta cheese. While my recipe version is different from Melissa's, the inspiration for using ripe summer ready tomatoes is the underlying idea. With not much mint on hand I added some arugula which gave it a nice peppery finish.

Pasta with sautéed tomatoes

Here's my recipe:
8 oz fusilli pasta
3 garlic cloves smashed
1 tablespoon olive oil and more for drizzling
1 1/2 pints of cherry tomatoes halved
small bunch of scallions chopped
1/2 cup pepperoni abbruzze ( dry aged) chopped
fresh ricotta cheese ( about 3 tablespoons)
salt for finishing (maldon works well)
pinch of red pepper flakes
black pepper
mint leaves torn into small pieces ( about 1/4 c)
1 cup arugula

While the pasta is cooking, sauté the tomatoes in the olive oil for about 5 minutes adding garlic and abbruzze for an extra few minutes over medium heat.
Add cooked pasta to the tomato mixture adding a bit of pasta water to make a sauce.
In the same sauté pan add to the pasta mix fresh chopped scallions, red pepper flakes, ricotta evenly distributed and finally some chopped mint and arugula. Finish with a few flakes of sea salt. Serve making sure to give each person a nice dollop of ricotta.