Messy and Picky

This beauty of a dish takes all of 15 - 20 minutes (depending on what kind of pasta you're making) to make and with no complicated steps, just good ingredients. This is the pasta salad I brought to the potluck on Friday night. I've seen a few recipes pop up on the blogs of the other attendees too which is a nice sharing of info.

What you'll need:

• 1 box of pasta (I used 1/2 box of farfalle and 1/2 box of rotini)
• 1/2 lbs of mozzarella balls (these are Claudio's via Sue's Produce 18/Sansom)
• 1 pint of sun dried cherry tomatoes in olive oil (Sue's Produce)
• (roasted red peppers in oil also work very well and are also available at Sue's)
• basil (fresh from Sue's Produce)
• Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 lemon
• olive oil
• salt & pepper

Bring a pot of water to boil. I used two different pastas with different cooking times so I used two. At the point of a nice boil, add a couple pinches of salt and a swirl of olive oil and stir in your pasta. Set a timer! I took out the farfalle al dente and let the rotini stay in until fully cooked to give a little bit of variation.

While the pasta's cooking away, quarter the mozzarella balls. Chop them or break them apart with your fingers. Make sure to eat a few along the way (this cannot be stressed enough). Chop up the tomatoes as well. Stick the mozzarella and tomatoes in a bowl together and let them start to marinate a bit. Chop up a few leaves of basil and put them aside to add later to taste.

When the pasta's done, drain into a large colander and rinse with cold water. Drain and place into a large serving bowl. Add in the mozzarella and tomatoes, a couple pinches of salt and a few cracks of pepper to taste. Mix. Add in the juice of 1/2 a lemon and chopped basil to taste. Add in the olive oil from the tomatoes and if that's not enough, add some more from your pantry . If you have some Parmesan, grate some to give a second, saltier hard cheese to compliment the mozzarella. Toss it and stick it in the fridge to let it come together.

You should probably let it sit for an hour or so. I got started late (duh) and it wasn't sitting for that long. Before serving, be sure to give it a good stir to get all the pasta evenly coated with the oils and juices which have settled at the bottom.

Wanna make it vegan? Double check your pasta to make sure there's no egg, whey, dried milk or some other weird trace ingredient and take out the cheese(s). Add in some more veggies like the roasted red peppers in olive oil or roast your own in a pan or in the oven. Cubes of eggplant would also work well.

And yes, that is one gigantic pepper mill at the foreground. I've had it for about 6 years. I love it.