Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Caprese Pasta Salad

My favorite salad, by far, is a classic Caprese salad. Layers of Tomato, Mozzarella Cheese and basil, dressed simply with olive oil, red wine vinegar and salt & pepper. It is truly divine. I wish I could visit Capri. If it's on the menu, I order it. Make it with Buffalo Mozzarella and I'm in heaven. Literally. Years ago, I adapted this for a pasta salad. It was delicious and was gone. Having leftover cooked pasta from last night, I was inspired to make it again to see how it would turn out with brown rice pasta.

The picture is a little blurry, but hope that it gets the idea accross...



Caprese Pasta Salad

8 oz cooked, cooled brown rice pasta
16 oz container grape tomatoes, halved
8 oz block of mozzarella cheese, cut into cubes
4 or 5 fresh leaves of basil, jullienned
3 tbs GOOD olive oil
2 tbs red wine vinegar
Salt & Pepper to taste

Mix together and let sit in fridge for about 20 mins to half hour. Serve in lettuce cups, or on a nice bed of romaine.

My caution would be to not over dress OR let sit too long. Brown rice pasta continues to soak in dressings and will become mushy.

:)

2 comments:

Mrs. G.F. said...

I know..I love this kind of stuff (since I am Italian American, are you?).. I have been been gluten free around 7 months (? not sure how long), and I haven't eaten pasta yet..I wanted to lose the taste of the original...

:)

kbabe1968 said...

Nope...not Italian by birth - but you'd think red gravy was running thru my veins if you met me. Leaving pasta behind had been my fear, of course. Tinkyada is one of the BEST out there. Some of them are mushy and tasteless but not them.

We were whole wheat pasta people for a long time, so brown rice pasta is a very close facsimile. My kids actually prefer the brown rice pasta now. :D