The pasta itself is the best part of this pasta dish! In the past I had always skipped over all the fancy shapes (and colors) of pasta at our local Italian Market and went for the cheap kind. That's what pasta is supposed to be right? Cheap. When I say cheap I mean maybe $1.75 compared to the $4.00 for the fancy stuff. Well I splurged this time and I think you should too. I can't remember what the name of this particular pasta is but I had it once in Italy. It came to the table and was bright green with pesto, green beans and little chunks of potatoes. I skipped the potatoes in my creation and didn't add near enough pesto I guess as it was no where near as bright! Also I threw in some Parmesan cheese... I'm sure it was in the original as well. It was pretty good but was even better today eaten cold as a pasta salad.
For the bruschetta, I tried to stick with the classic recipe. I mixed tomatoes, a little olive oil and basil together in a bowl. As I did this, some plain slices of long bread were under the broiler. When they looked toasty I took them out rubbed a garlic clove, cut in half, all along the top of them. Tomato mixture was spooned on top of this along with a little salt and pepper. Delicious! I had my doubts about the garlic rubbing part as I didn't think the flavor would rub off. It did indeed and this was a really great side dish for our pasta.
In other news - I went to Europe not even liking chocolate and came home loving Nutella. How does that work? It's EVERYWHERE in Europe... you can get containers bigger than an ice-cream pail full of Nutella. I finally understand the wonder that is Nutella. Our container is currently hidden in the kitchen somewhere....
