summer pasta

Not cooking the pasta sauce means less heat in the kitchen. If it's summertime, heat in the kitchen is not desirable. Thus was born summer pasta.

Cooking the pasta in advance and serving it cold is another trick for minimizing kitchen heat, but this requires advance planning. This option is usually ruled out for folks like us, and besides, the result is then called pasta salad, not summer pasta. A whole other cooking topic.

By coincidence a supermarket checkout magazine rack snatch the day before this creation (reinforced by the current month of one of our regular cooking mag subs) had a summer pasta recipe that the dr bob cooking team actually contemplated doing. The highlights: skinning the tomato routine x-marking the ends with a knife, dropping into boiling water, then ice water, then peeling, then seeding ...

ms_ani said "What for? The skins are good for you."

Another tedious kitchen technique deep-sixed just in time.

We never noticed the skin or the seeds.

So the scene of the creative process: four for dinner and we were already late returning from work. And it was summertime. This recipe only takes as long as the pasta water takes to boil and al-dentize the pasta.

Our ingredient list is only suggestive, but the tomatoes and basil are mandatory. If no lactose intolerant guests are present, you can complete them to their natural trio with real mozzarella, not some supermarket impersonator, also chopped. The chick peas were a nice addition that just happened to be on hand. Use your imagination.

ingredients

pasta

1 lb farfalle (bowtie pasta)

chunky stuff

6 plum tomatoes, chopped

1 c basil leaves, chopped finely

1 green onion, chopped finely

1/4 red pepper, chopped finely

1 7 3/4 oz can (~1 c) cooked chick peas

1 1.1 oz can (~1/2 c) sliced black olives

1 1/2 T capers

nonchunky stuff

1/2 c? olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

instructions

1. Start the boiling process, then work on the veggie prep. Tomatoes first. We cut them in half just missing the stem scab, then notch out the scab on the one side, slice lengthwise into thin strips (max 3/8 inch), then crosswise to generate the requisite chopped tomatoes.
2. Fresh basil is not difficult to come by in the summer. But how do you measure it? Enough leaves (stems removed) to fill a cup unpressed, maybe, then chop finely. We use our mezzaluna here. The two-handled half-moon knive that is more like a crescent moon than a half if you ask us (and even if you don't). The green onion and red pepper are quick.
3. Then open the cans. Toss in a few forkfuls of capers. Oil, salt, and pepper. Let it sit till the pasta is ready.
4. Then drain the latter and mix with the former. Not bad for so little effort.

notes

1. One last thing. You are allowed to do this out of season.