Like everywhere else in the country, we’ve had the weirdest weather this spring. A few days ago we woke to grey skies, which is quite frankly pretty bizarre but nonetheless sort of welcome in New Mexico in May, especially this May, when we’ve had approximately zero significant precipitation since almost the start of the year. Later that morning, it hailed, and then rained sideways, and blew a couple of Steve’s big, potted trees over in the driveway, and I lit a fire in the woodstove and kept it going all day, feeling sorry for myself. The moisture I didn’t mind. I just wanted warm. I wanted summer.
It arrived the next day: no wind, cornflower sky, only a few wispy clouds. Santa Fe in all its late-spring glory. That evening after we put the kids to bed, I went mountain biking, the way I used to do almost every night before I had two girls to bathe and feed, when I could ride the trails until dark. Now, those sweet evening rides are a rarity, and all the more precious because of how seldom I can escape on my bike. In the old days, I’d come home and forage through the fridge for dinner rations or let Steve fix something for us as darkness settled on the house, but now that I’m a mom and a fledgling cook, I’m trying to have more of a conscience when it comes to actually preparing the food I put in my mouth.
Mostly as I rode, I was marveling at the lovely apricot light on the mountains and worrying about how dry the trails are and feeling gratitude in every cell in my body for being out in that flawless, magical evening, but I guess somewhere in my brain, without realizing it, I was also thinking about making dinner.
Because as soon as I skirted the fence line at our house and threaded through the narrow gap between the cholla cacti and rounded the bend by the raised garden beds getting all perky with sprouting greens, I knew what I was going to make, and what I wanted to eat, with what we had in the house: early summer pasta.
I didn’t have a recipe—I just made it up as I went, while Steve hunched over the laptop in his office, pretending to do bills for his clients but really watching ski videos on Youtube instead. I was blown away by how quick and easy it is to make and, conversely, how hard it is to screw up and how pretty it looked on plate. Essential for rookies like me!
Here's the deal:
8 ounces ziti pasta
half a container of cherry tomatoes, sliced or quartered depending on size (I happened to have a colorful mix of organic heirlooms from Trader Joe’s on hand)
1 container of fresh whole-milk mozzarella buttons (not the big chunks), halved
balsamic vinegar, olive oil, oregano, basil, salt and pepper to taste
handful of fresh arugula
While the water was boiling for the pasta, I prepped the tomatoes and mozzarella and put them into a big bowl. Then I cooked the pasta for 10 minutes with a dash of salt and drained it, tossing it in with the mozzarella and tomatoes. Steve arrived in time to work his magic with the spices, oil, and balsamic vinegar—he didn't measure but just poured them in with some innate and genius sense of proportion. We haven’t planted our herbs yet, so he used dried basil and a bit of oregano from the spice cupboard, then seasoned generously with salt and pepper. It was still missing something fresh and green, so Steve went out back with the scissors and harvested our first mini-crop of arugula, which we threw into the mix and tossed. Voila!
We ate outside as it was getting dark, and the pasta tasted clean and fresh, just like a perfect summer evening on your fork. I'm definitely going to make this ahead of time and bring it along on our San Juan River trip next month.
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