This summer we have some wonderful yellow pear cherry tomatoes from our vegetable garden (thanks to Philly again for introducing this special tomato to me), the normal tomatoes do not harvest well this year due to too much rain but these cute yellow light bulb-shaped ones surprisingly came out very well. They have a wonderful sweetness taste and not not acidic at all. So how should I consume them? I have made a simple and damn easy caprese pasta inspired from Christina and Peter Sturken’s blog. Ideal for hot Summer days!!!

The original recipe called for raw tomatoes but I preferred to have the tomatoes briefly roasted as I like them slightly cooked.

Serves 3

Ingredients:

• 30 cherry tomatoes (red or yellow pear ones), you can use more tomatoes if desire
• 2 fresh mozzerella, cut into small cubes
• 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
• extra virgin olive oil (the best one you can get)
• 3 tbsp balsamic0 blanco (white balsamico), you can subsitute this with white wine vinegar
• freshly ground black pepper
• 1 cup fresh basil leaves, picked, washed and dried, shredded if using normal basil leaves. If you can get hold of those small leaves ones that will make the dish even more special and no need to shred the leaves
• freshly gound coarse salt
• Pasta of your choice (e.g. penne, fettucine, spaghetti, I have used gemelli here, it’s one of my favorite pasta)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven at 130ºC.
2. Cut the cherry tomatoes into halves and line them skin side down in a baking tray. Season with some ground salt and black pepper. Sprinkle some dried basil on top and then add some olive oil on top. If you use red cherry tomatoes, add a pinch of sugar on top. This is not necessary for yellow cherry tomatoes because this yellow ones are not as acidic as the red ones.
3. Roast the tomatoes in the oven for 30 mins or so.
4. In the meantime, in a large mixing bowl, marinate the mozzerella with the white wine vinegar, white aceto balsamico, generous amount of olive oil and salt and pepper.
5. When the cherry tomatoes are roasted for 30 mins, remove from the oven and let it cool down for about 15 minutes. Then mix in with the mozzerella and add in the basil leaves and marinate for another 30 minutes.  The total marinating time should be roughly for one hour.
6. When you are ready for dinner, cook the pasta as required and drain.
7. Warm the pasta dishes in the microwave for about 1.5 mins. Divide the pasta onto the dishes.
8. Serve the marinated tomato mozzerella sauce on top of the pasta.

Enjoy!

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