Baked Tomato and Cheese Pasta Salad

This salad is eaten warm; it’s a meal in itself with the pasta providing the carbohydrates, the cheese the protein, the tomatoes, basil leaves, olives and pine nuts all the vitamins, minerals and what not a body needs. I’m reminding regular readers of this recipe because I’ve a lot of cherry tomatoes on hand. And no, I didn’t buy them in the supermarket. I grew them all by myself – and all four plants decided to produce ripe fruit at one and the same time, so I’ve spent the last half hour on the computer checking out recipes for using cherry tomatoes.

Of course, you don’t have to have cherry tomatoes. When my tomato vines aren’t producing I substitute plum (small, inexpensive) tomatoes – but I warn you there is no substitute for the feta cheese, or the pine nuts (available in gourmet stores) or fresh basil leaves, or black olives.

And with that advice in mind, let’s start preparing this super delicious salad with:

300 grammes feta cheese

? cup olive oil

500 grammes cherry tomatoes

375 grammes penne pasta

? cup toasted pine nuts

? cup firmly packed fresh young basil leaves

? cup black olives, seeded (if necessary) and sliced

METHOD

Heat the oven to 475-500 degrees.

Toast the pine nuts in a dry non-stick pan, shaking the pan from time to time to prevent the nuts from burning. Place the cheese in a large piece of foil, bring the sides of the foil up around the cheese and drizzle it with 2 only tablespoons of olive oil. Bring all four sides of the foil together and fold them over to seal and envelope both the cheese and the oil.

Place the foil-wrapped parcel of olive-oil-drizzled cheese at one end of a shallow baking dish. Puncture the skins of the tomatoes (or cut out the core if you’re using plum tomatoes) to prevent the bursting and making a nasty mess inside your oven. Place the tomatoes at the other end of the shallow baking dish holding the foil-wrapped cheese and olive oil and drizzle the rest of the oil over the tomatoes. Cook the pasta as usual. While the pasta is cooking put the baking dish with the tomatoes and cheese in a very hot oven and bake/roast for about ten minutes.

Place the basil, pine nuts and black olives in a large bowl.

Add the drained pasta, the tomatoes and any liquid in the baking dish to the mixture in the bowl. Unwrap the cheese and add it, with all the oil to the rest of the ingredients in the large bowl. Stir gently to combine all and serve. Warning. Time your cooking to allow the baked/roasted tomatoes and cheese to cool slightly so that you can unwrap the cheese with no fear of getting scalded.

Serves four.