Mediterranean Pasta

I was bottling my first batch of beer over at Diane's house, when she had this 'three layer dip' that she bought from the farmers market that day. the bottom layer was pesto, the middle layer was sun dried tomatoes, the top layer was feta. I thought it tasted VERY Mediterranean and said hmm, I need to incorporate this into something. My friend Summer was having a wine social that weekend and I thought this dish was a pretty good idea. But rather than make the dip, I turned it into a pasta dish. I like using rotini pasta for pesto because the little basil bits gets stuck in the middle of the corkscrews and it seems to lock in that flavor. This dish can be served warm, room temperature, or cold like a pasta salad. If you want to take a pretty good shortcut and not make the pesto from scratch like I did, just buy from the refrigerated section from your grocery store the premade pesto, and you'll probably have to use the entire four ounce container.

Serves a crowd as side dish or makes a main entree for 5

1 pound of rotini pasta - I used the organic one from Trader Joes

1 small jar of sundried tomatoes in olive oil
2 teaspoons of sun dried tomato olive oil from that jar

1 small container of crumbled goat cheese feta. Or use regular feta.

Pesto - approximately 1 cup

a generous sprinkle of parm cheese

Makes approximately 1 cup of Pesto:

1/2 large pack (approximately 2 handfulls) of fresh basil

1/4 cup pine nuts

5 cloves of garlic

1/4 cup of grated Parmesan cheese

salt and pepper

Extra Virgin Olive Oil - EVOO

Boil enough water as directed for the pasta. While the water is going make the pesto.

How to make the pesto. In a food processor, take your cleaned basil and remove the stems and stuff it in. Add in the pine nuts and cloves of garlic - no need to mince, the processor does the work for you. Add in the parm cheese and season with salt and pepper. Take the EVOO and pour three turns in the food processor over these ingredients. close it and allow the food processor to rip. While it is chopping away, slowly pour the EVOO through the top of the opening and stream in while its processing. You can watch it emulsify and stop when it's at the good consistency. I would consider a good consistency to be liquefied basil leaves, but not sitting in a soup of olive oil.

Cook the pasta as directed - but add 2 minutes to the cook time. I didn't like the al dente consistency, and wanted it to be slightly more tender, but not close to being mushy. Package said 9 minutes, I cooked for 11 and was happy with that result. Drain. Take the pasta and dump into a bowl.

Pour over the pasta your pesto. Mix. Dice up the sun dried tomatoes if they are not already diced. Be sure to scrape up the olive oil if you are cutting up the sun dried tomatoes and put that in the bowl too. Pour over the top most of the feta. Toss. Top with the rest of the feta, and also add over the top a generous sprinkle of Parmesan cheese. Serve.