Summery Pasta Salad

(There'll be caveats and explanations, but all of those will be after the recipe- so, if anything in the recipe confuses you, scroll down and you'll get the info you need.)

Ingredients:

1/2 pound (about 1/2 box) of penne rigate or other small pasta

3-4 mini bell peppers, or 1-2 regular size bell peppers

A large handful of fresh basil leaves

15-20 cherry tomatoes

10-12 bocconcini (small mozzarella balls) or 5 slices fresh mozzarella

Olive oil and balsamic vinegar to taste

Directions:

1. Set a pot of salted water to boil for your pasta.

2. Line a baking sheet with tinfoil and set your peppers on it. Drizzle them with olive oil. Broil for 10 minutes either on 375 degrees F, or on high, or whatever settings your broiler/oven/toaster oven has. When it's done (whenever the skins of the peppers have started blackening), take it out and set it somewhere to cool.

3. Wash the basil and then chop it into messy ribbons.

4. Chop all the cherry tomatoes into bite-size pieces.

5. Slice all the bocconcini into two or three pieces. (Or slice your mozzarella into bite-size cubes).

6. Place tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil into large bowl.

7. When the water boils, cook your pasta according to box ingredients. Drain and leave in the colander to cool.

8. Once the bell peppers have cooled enough that you can handle them with your bare hands, peel off the skins- they should be easy to peel off, but don't worry if some of the skins stay on. Slice off the tops of the peppers and then slice them open and scrape all the seeds out. Chop the peppers into thin ribbons. Toss them into your bowl.

9. Pour the pasta (once it's cooled a bit, and you un-stick any pasta that stuck together) into the bowl. Mix well.

10. Drizzle on olive oil and balsamic vinegar to the amounts that you like. Add more to taste as well as any herbs that you want.

Serving size: This makes about 3 large plates' worth of pasta salad, so like, 3 servings. More if your servings aren't as big as mine are.

Recipe Notes:

-Bocconcini are little mozzarella balls that I love. My dad has found them at Costco in giant containers filled with oil for them to marinate in. However, they can be expensive sometimes, and regular fresh mozzarella works just as well.

-Mini bell peppers are really convenient because they come in a bag and you can use them for lots of things! They also fit neatly into the toaster oven, where I just put on the broil function and then voila, roasted red pepper effect. But you can also just use regular bell peppers, or even buy a jar of premade roasted bell peppers. Also, I only know how the broiling function on my own oven and toaster oven work, so you know. You'll have to figure out how your own kitchen works. Regular roasting can also work but it takes longer. 

-And the roasted bell peppers really make this recipe! Otherwise it's just a basic caprese pasta salad, which I used to make all the time and got sick of. This adds a delightful smoky flavor. Another option: add kalamata olives, or replace the mozzarella with feta. Adding something salty or smoky adds a kick to make the flavor interesting. 

-Penne rigate is the best, but fusilli, cavatappi, rotini, etc. are also great options.

-Tbh get a basil plant because it is so helpful to have around, but you can also just get basil at the store, idk.

Me Talking, Irrelevant to Recipe:

Yes, I did it! I started posting my own recipes! I did make that big post where I shared the links to all the recipes on my Twitter thread, those of them that had links, that is. However, I also did say that some of my recipes were just ones I made up! So I'm going to become a Recipe Blogger. Oh. Em. Gee. Guize. I am dying for these salted caramel brownies. Yes, Dave ate three. Around my house we call them the "Dave addiction brownies," which is why I made the title of this post uncomfortably sexual. Seriously, when Dave is watching the playoffs, he can NOT get enough of these. Thank God for Trader Joe's sale on my secret ingredient, FLOUR, which is a secret I will take to my grave- except for you guize! Time for a hundred ads.

OK, sorry for the unwarranted roast on recipe bloggers. Obviously I will not be that type of recipe blogger, because I am gay. However, I do want to share my recipes from time to time. Since it's summer, I thought I would start with a very summery recipe that is really easy to make. Pasta salad is a refreshing dish, tends to use ingredients that are at their peak in the summer, and doesn't make you want to die at the thought of preparing it because it's so damn hot that you just want to eat an ice cube for lunch. Honestly, this recipe is primarily good in summer, because let's be real, tomatoes kind of suck when it's not summer. Like, they're fine, I guess, and of course I use tomatoes the rest of the year, but there's not much point to having a dish with fresh tomatoes in the winter. Same with fresh basil. As soon as summer hits though, you get that first whiff of basil and that first bite of a tomato that has some real personality, and you're like, oh damn! I guess it is summer! I guess summer has a purpose besides melting my brain off! The purpose is fresh produce!

Anyway, caprese pasta salad used to be my go-to meal because it literally is just "chop small ingredient, make pasta, mix, eat" but then, because I'm the world's most annoying eater, I got bored of the same flavors over and over and went back to eating tortilla chips with nothing as my go-to meal. Yeah, really healthy, I know. But then I learned how to make roasted red peppers for a different recipe and learned that it's actually wildly easy and I decided to make some for a pasta salad that I was making on a whim, and suddenly, pasta salad was fun again, and interesting! I know, that was a thrill ride of a story.

I figured a super-easy recipe like this one that really matches the Vibes of the season would be perfect. I do tend to try and challenge myself when cooking, because it's one of the few things I'm good at, but I also want to be accessible to the common folk who are not so good at cooking. So I will be explaining things that might "seem obvious" to more experienced cooks, and whenever I open my blog to public eyes again, I will be open for any "dumb" questions in the comments. And yes, a lot of my recipes will include things like "just cook it for like 10 minutes I don't know, just whenever it looks like it doesn't suck anymore" because you know. Who knows. Wing it. That's cooking, and life.

Oh and yeah I like to think I "eat seasonally" like some sort of California hippie, because if you read my blog in the old days, you know that I'm semi-obsessed with the seasons, and I also like food, so this was sort of inevitable. So I'll try and post recipes that match the season, but that might not always actually happen.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy the pasta salad if you try making it! Keep your eyes open for more recipe posts and for more posts about me complaining about things or God knows what.