Friday, June 4, 2010

What's for dinner? Easy Summer Pasta










This is one of my favorite, stand-by, quick meals.  I spent way too many hours planting flowers in my garden yesterday, even though I had no plan for dinner (oops!).  So, it was definitely a pasta night.  This is, of course, even better with ingredients fresh from your garden (and hopefully our weather warms up and dries out soon so my garden has a shot).
Easy Summer Pasta
by Raechel Medina

1 pkg Tinkyada brown rice fussili pasta
1/2 pkg bacon
3 Roma tomatoes, seeded and chopped (or use halved cherry tomatoes)
10 large fresh basil leaves, rinsed and chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
olive oil
kosher salt & fresh-ground black pepper

In a large pot, bring water to boil, then cook pasta, following package directions.  Meanwhile, slice and cook bacon until crisp.  Remove from pan, drain and set aside.

As soon as pasta is done cooking, remove from heat and drain water.  Place minced garlic in the bottom of the still-hot pan.  Add the other ingredients, drizzling a bit of olive oil so the pasta doesn't stick and adding salt and pepper to taste.  Mix thoroughly and serve.

Note: the rest of my family likes to add a bit of balsamic vinegar to this as well.  A couple of them also add a dash of onion powder to their serving.

1 comment:

Danica said...

I'm thinking lemon pepper tempeh in place of the bacon? Only because that's my favorite. :D Even just a savory marinade. OH!! I actually have a TLT recipe and the tempeh marinade is nice and salty like bacon. Totally making this one when we get back to J.