Recipes From the Porch: Mediterranean Pasta Salad

Last weekend, my contribution to Mama Jill's surprise party was a  ginormous bowl of pasta salad. I had first made the salad for our spa night and Mama Jill went nuts over it, so, it seemed like the obvious thing to take to the party.

The recipe is simple, in fact, there is no recipe, I just kind of made it up as I went along, based on other Mediterranean recipes that I had made in the past and, using ingredients that I had on hand (spa night was all about taking it easy).

Simple or not, it was a hit.

The ingredientses (Teresa Giudice reference!):

Three cheese tortellini
Fresh mozzarella (I use mozzarella pearls, purchased in the deli section of the Hellmouth)
Grape tomatoes
Fresh basil
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar
Salt and cracked pepper to taste

The steps:

Cut tomatoes in half, toss in a large bowl.

Chiffonade a large bunch of fresh basil (remove leaves from stem, gather in a small stack, roll the stack tightly, and cut, creating thin ribbons). Toss in the bowl with the tomatoes.

Meanwhile, cook a package of fresh tortellini. And, here's a tip: use an appropriately sized pan so that your tortellini doesn't rise up and escape the pan in revolt. Clearly, I didn't follow my own advice. Don't be like me. I mean, be like me when I say to use a larger pan, don't be like me when I am being an idiot. Got it?

When the tortellini is done, drain and rinse with cold water, allow to cool. Meanwhile, add mozzarella to the tomatoes and basil and sprinkle with olive oil and balsamic.

Finally, add the cooled tortellini to the bowl and season with salt and cracked pepper.

And, that's it, my friends. Super simple, fairly healthy, and relatively inexpensive. Plus, if you have a Mama Jill in your life, she will go gaga over it and spend a large portion of her surprise 50th birthday party telling everyone how ahh-mayy-zzzing your pasta salad is.

And, you will take home an empty bowl.

True story.