Caprese Pasta Salad - Basil, Tomato, Mozzarella

Oh my.... this is one of the yummiest things you'll ever put in your mouth. Seriously, I could eat it every single day. It's so simple to make and requires very little skill, so there's no reason not to try it. Here's how.

First, you'll need a pound of cooked, rinsed, and drained pasta (cold). Here I'm using elbows, but any fun shape will do. I put the prepared pasta in a big bowl and start building the salad like this:

I start by chopping really ripe tomatoes, lots of them. The better the tomatoes, the better this salad will be, so use really good ones. I chop about 1/2 lb for 1 lb. of pasta.

I especially like Campari tomatoes. The next really important ingredient is fresh mozzarella. It's really, really, really worth it to buy the fresh stuff.  You'll need about 1/2 pound, diced.

Of course you're going to need fresh basil - it's the star of the show here, so the more the better! Use as much as you like. I honestly don't think you can add too much.

You'll also need a little vinaigrette - my favorites are light champagne vinaigrette and sun-dried tomato vinaigrette, but feel free to use your favorite.  I use about 1/4 cup - just enough to lightly wet all the ingredients.

Stir it all together and season with salt and pepper (heavy on the pepper). Check the saltiness of your mozzarella first - brands differ greatly.

Caprese Pasta Salad

Printable Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 pound elbow pasta, cooked, drained, and cooled

• 1/2 pound diced ripe tomatoes

• 1/2 pound diced fresh mozzarella

• 1/4 cup of your favorite vinaigrette

• 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil (or more to taste)

• salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Gently toss ingredients together and serve. Refrigerate leftovers.

Note

• Use a serrated knife to easily cut both the tomatoes and the fresh mozzarella. 

Super Crunchy Oven Roasted Potatoes!

Potatoes are my favorite root vegetable and these oven roasted spuds rank right up at the top of the list!

I especially like to roast my potatoes along side the juiciest oven roasted chicken ever. There's just something about chicken fat that really makes them good!

Anyway, I peeled and cut up about 4 large Idaho baking potatoes, but you could use whatever potatoes you like. Sometimes I throw in a few carrots too, but not today.

Next I drizzled the potatoes with a little EVOO (extra virgin olive oil). Just enough to protect them from the oven heat and keep them from shriveling into dry little bricks. I threw in a few chunks of chopped onion too. The onion will burn when exposed to too much direct heat, so tuck them down under the potatoes. You can season with a little salt and pepper now, or do like me and forget until later. Oops.

After nearly 2 hours in a 350F oven, the chicken was done. The potatoes were technically done too, but they weren't as brown and crispy as I like them because they ended up swimming in a lot of pan juices, so I removed the chickens from the roasting pan, poured off the juices (reserve for stock or gravy), tossed the potatoes with some of the rendered chicken fat, seasoned with a bit of salt and pepper, then increase the oven temp to 450F and roasted the potatoes, uncovered, for another 10-15 minutes. Here's what they looked like when they were done.

So crispy and yummy! See those really dark bits? They're the most delicious caramelized onions imaginable. I really hope you try these sometime!