Pasta Ponza

Yesterday I was intent on making myself a real dinner. I have been a bit lax with my cooking lately, living on cafeteria sandwiches and frozen veggie burgers. It's not that I haven't had time because I have. It is just so much easier to have someone else make you a panini. Or to throw a frozen burger into the microwave and press go. Presto! Dinner in seconds.

All of you were the ones to finally get me into the kitchen. I thought, I want to post but I'm not going to write about veggie burgers and frozen vegetables. So, I sat in our library and instead of doing my readings for my class I leafed through Giada at Home and chose my dinner.

I did all of this at 9 in the morning, too.

I found a nice quick pasta dish that only required me buying one ingredient. It also used copious amounts of cheese and breadcrumbs which pretty much sold me on the dish. It is a very easy recipe and will be one that I will be making again and again. Seriously, easy AND cheesy?! How can you not make this dish?

Pasta Ponza

Ingredients:

Unsalted butter for greasing

2 cups red cherry tomatoes halved

2 cups yellow cherry tomatoes halved

1/4 cup capers

1 tbsp olive oil plus more for drizzling

1/2 tsp of salt

1/4 tsp of blackpepper

1/2 cup Italian style dried breadcrumbs

1 pound ziti

1 1/4 cup Pecorino Romano grated

1/4 cup fresh flat-leaf pasta

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Butter an 8 x 8 glass baking dish and add the tomatoes, capers, olive oil, salt and pepper. Mix to combine and then sprinkle on the bread crumbs. Drizzle with olive oil and bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the breadcrumbs turn golden brown.

Meanwhile, boil the ziti according to the package's instructions, roughly 8-10 minutes.

Drain pasta and save 1 cup of cooking water. Add the pasta to the tomato-bread crumb mixture and toss to coat the pasta. Add pasta water where necessary and all of the cheese.

Mangia!