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.

Summer Pasta Salad: inspiration from a new cookbook

Lately I've been carving out time to peruse A Simple Feast admiring the striking photographs and clever layout as much as the seasonable recipes.

I was inspired this morning due to the 90 degree day ahead to make a jump start on a summer favorite- pasta salad. 

Rather than follow the same recipe in A Simple Feast,  I used the main idea along with some of the ingredients as inspiration to make pasta salad with what was already in my kitchen, then followed the cookbook's vinaigrette recipe to lightly dress the pasta.
Next time I'll follow their recipe to add to my pasta repertoire.

My version of summer pasta salad ( I usually use whatever is on hand and in season). 

8 ounces penne pasta

pint of organic cherry tomatoes cut in half

2 cups of frozen peas cooked for 3-5 minutes then drained

mint leaves torn in small pieces

parmesan cheese shaved with a vegetable peeler

Vinaigrette recipe from A Simple Feast:

whisk 1/3 cup of olive oil plus more for tossing the pasta ( I used Olio Santo from California- really delicious) 

finely grated zest and juice of 1 lemon

1 shallot, minced

1 garlic clove, minced

Freshly ground pepper