tomato crazy

This beautiful pasta is so striking that not only did it get the front page of the summer pasta article in Martha Stewart Living, it also landed the cover of the magazine! Yes, only here is a food item treated like a supermodel.

My results look more like the cover page - it's really just a difference of pasta. Here's the interesting new shape I have yet to encounter...

Croxetti? I must get my hands on this newfangled coin-shaped pasta!

But with a few tweaks, I don't have to wait to make my version of the sauce. Martha lists heirloom tomatoes in a variety of colors, torn basil, lemon zest, garlic chips, capers, red pepper flakes, and your standard extra virgin olive oil for the delicious topper but I have plans of my own...

hmm, I probably should be drinking a little wine while I cook!

My substitutions:

• Regular red tomatoes instead of heirloom tomatoes because they're cheaper and my neighborhood greengrocer doesn't sell that yuppie crap. I do have two shapes (roma and beefsteak) to give a little variety in size and shape!
• Minced garlic instead of whole garlic cloves to be turned into garlic chips. They'll taste the same and pre-cut garlic is just easier!
• Kalamata olives instead of capers... I'm not against capers, I just prefer olives. Since they're both salty, I find the olives to be an ingenious alternate. Also, they were already in my refrigerator, so why not!

The basil, lemon zest, and extra virgin olive oil remain unchanged. And that red onion? That was included in the photo by accident but it is not in the recipe. The red onion will be used in another Martha Stewart recipe, to be executed later this week. And I forgot about the red pepper flakes until it was time to add them, but here they are!

Brown garlic in the extra virgin olive oil over LOW heat.
You do not want to be burning yourself with oil splatter.
Add red pepper flakes mid-way through (my idea!)

Delicious!

Chop the tomatoes into little wedges, tear up your basil, and halve the olives.
Toss!

see, not using the red onion!

Add lemon zest...

... and the browned garlic.
Toss again!

Boil water and cook your pasta.
I'm using pappardelle, a long flat noodle.
Follow the directions on the package for al dente...
the instructions are usually spot-on about that.

Toss pasta with the tomato mix...

et voila! Dinner is served!

Delicious and nutritious, and best of all, it tastes so FRESH!
Artichoke heart and Parmesan cheese optional.

Gazpacho, marinated tomato pasta... Mumsy bought a huge box of tomatoes and we need to come up with more ways to use 'em!