Roasted Tomato & Feta Fusilli
Before college, I’d never experienced cooking for myself (aside from the occasional grilled cheese or scrambled eggs). I enjoy cooking, I do. But time and money and life often give me excuses not to, and it’s only one bad or busy day before I’m sitting in bed with a bowl of Kraft Mac & Cheese.
When I have a rare bout of culinary inspiration, I stop in the Whole Foods right down the street from where I work. This is what I did yesterday after Whole Foods tweeted this recipe.
Simple, inexpensive and delicious.
In typical me fashion, I tweaked the recipe a little, so the following is my version of the dish. See the previous link for the Whole Foods recipe.
1/ 2 lb. whole wheat fusilli
2 tsp. extra virgin olive oil
salt & ground black pepper
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
1/2 cup chopped basil
1 zucchini, grated
2 tbsp. lemon juice
5 Roma tomatoes, quarteredÂ
Preheat your oven to 400°. Arrange the tomatoes on a parchment-lined baking pan. Drizzle the extra virgin olive oil over the tomatoes and season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle some of the feta and the basil on top and roast in the oven for about 20 minutes. In the meantime, bring a pot of salted water to a boil and add the pasta. Cook until al dente, 10 to 12 minutes. Drain and transfer to a large bowl. Add zucchini, lemon juice and roasted tomatoes. EAT.
It’s as simple as that. What’s NOT simple, however, is grating zucchini. There’s probably an easier way to do it than using an old-fashioned grater. The Whole Foods recipe calls for two zucchinis or squash (squashes?). After grating about half of one, I said OK THIS IS ENOUGH. It seemed like a little too much zucchini, anyway.
When I shopped for ingredients, I was banking on already having the Parmesan cheese that Whole Foods’ recipe calls for. Of course, I didn’t. But I got over it once I realized I had feta to work with because I love feta and think it has more flavor. It worked out so well, in fact, that I added additional cheese crumbles to the finished product.
I’d recommend looking into a more efficient way (if there is one) to grate your zucchini or squash. That was really the only pain in making this dish. Otherwise, very easy and delectable (and relatively healthy, assuming you don’t pile on the cheese like moi).
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