Tonight for dinner, I prepared an heirloom tomato, lemon, and arugula pasta.  When I have an arugula salad, I dress it with nothing more than olive oil and fresh squeezed lemon, along with a bit of kosher salt and fresh ground pepper. Because I was adding arugula to my pasta tonight, I decided to add freshly squeezed lemon juice (and zest).

I started by mincing five cloves of garlic, mincing two shallots and zesting two lemons.

In a large sauté pan, I added two-thirds cup of olive oil and heated it. To the olive oil, I added the garlic, shallot and lemon zest.

I cooked that together for about a minute before adding two 16-ounce containers of mini heirloom tomatoes, along with a teaspoon of kosher salt and a half teaspoon of pepper. I also included a pinch of crushed red pepper flakes. Once the tomatoes were starting to soften and burst a bit, I added the juice of my two lemons and added a package of arugula and let it cook together for about ten minutes.

While the tomatoes and arugula were sautéing, I cooked my capellini pasta. Once that was done, I added it directly to the sauté pan, adding freshly grated parmesan cheese (and a pinch of red pepper flakes) to the noodles before mixing it together with the tomato mixture.

This dish was so very colorful! I love to have a lot of color in my meals and this one definitely hit the mark.

This is definitely a light and refreshing pasta for the summer months. I’m thinking about making this one for my bookclub when I host in a couple weeks. I sure hope they like it!

Ingredients

• 1 pound capellini noodles

• 5 cloves garlic, minced

• 2 shallots, minced

• zest and juice of 2 lemons

• 2/3 cup olive oil

• 1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus an additional pinch

• 1/2 teaspoon pepper

• pinch of crushed red pepper flakes

• 1 bag arugula

• 2 16-ounce containers mini heirloom tomatoes

• 1/2 cup freshly grated parmigiano reggiano

Directions

Heat olive oil in large sauté pan. Add garlic, shallots and lemon zest. Cook for 1 minute. Add tomatoes, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes and cook until tomatoes soften and some start to burst. Add lemon juice and arugula and a pinch of kosher salt. Let cook together until arugula cooks down.

Add cooked pasta and parmigian. Blend together and serve with a tad more grated cheese. Enjoy!

Until next time, Kris