Pasta with Summer Sauce

The end of summer is one of my favorite times to cook. I love combining fresh vegetables for delectable dinners. Last night we had one of our summertime favorites: Pasta with Summer Sauce. The original recipe is from a Moosewood cookbook, but after making it a few times by the book, I've adapted it to give it my own twist. From start to finish the recipe takes as long as it takes to cook a pound of pasta and is the perfect summer meal.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup chopped fresh basil

1/2 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley

1 pint cherry tomatoes (or I used 4 roma tomatoes diced)

5 green onions diced with stems

4 cloves garlic, pressed

1 quart green beans, ends removed and snapped in half

2-3 TBSP olive oil

3(ish) TBSP balsamic vinegar

salt and pepper to taste

1 pound rotini

1 6-8 oz. package feta cheese, crumbled

***We've sometimes added cooked chicken breast to this recipe but we like it better without as the chicken takes away from the flavor of the vegetables.

Boil a large pot of water for the pasta. While water is boiling prepare your vegetables. Add pasta and cook for 5 minutes. Add fresh green beans to the pasta and cook until al dente. Drain pasta/green beans. In the empty pot saute the garlic in the olive oil for 20 seconds (or until fragrant) add remaining vegetables and vinegar until heated through (this takes about 2 minutes--you don't want to do it too long otherwise the tomatoes get mushy). Off the heat stir in the pasta and green beans, toss with crumbled feta and salt and pepper to taste.

With our pasta we also seared a patio steak from a local market. It was a piece of pork tenderloin wrapped in flank steak and seasoned with salt and pepper.
Delicious!