Recipe Thursday! Sicilian sauce and radiatore pasta.

While Kill and I visited grandma Lavender I discovered that there are people in the world who like the recipes that I post :). I love that. Grandma made the cornmeal muffins for us and they were fantastic. She also got the fixings for Kill's favourite broccoli. My grandma's are special people. They're my other mothers and Elle and I used to spend one month with each of them over summer vacation. We always came home both fatter and tanned.

Today's recipe is something that I'm currently stuffing into my face and it is delicious. I call it:

Sicilian sauce and radiatore pasta (serves 1)

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp capers (no liquid from the jar)
• 1/2 chopped shallot or white onion
• 1 large clove of chopped garlic 
• 7 black olives chopped up (I like the sun dried ones the best but as long as they aren't pre cut and from a can you're golden) 
• 7 chopped grape tomatoes or 1 medium sized vine tomato
• 2 leaves of basil, rip them up with your hands
• 4 cups water
• 1 cup pasta 
•  1 tsp pesto (store bought or homemade but if you're vegan know that almost all have Parmesan cheese in them. I used Sunflower Kitchen's and it's made in Ontario)

 Put the water in a pot to boil, salt it a little, then get to chopping your ingredients. After a few minutes put another pot on the stove top and throw in the olive oil. Then let the oil heat up for 30 seconds on high and put shallots, garlic and capers in the pot. Turn down sauce to medium heat and stir. 
Put your pasta in boiling water (any old shape will do) and stir once to keep anything from sticking to the bottom. Add olives, tomatoes, pesto and 1 ladle full of the pasta water to your sauce then turn it down to a simmer and stir. Drain your pasta after about 8 minutes, in a colander over the sink and put your pasta + sauce in a bowl. Garnish with ripped up basil leaves and be happy!!

Love,

Cail

p.s. That bowl you see in the picture is from when Elle and I worked at summer camp in the forest. She was Spark and I was Cricket because while in nature, nature names were a must. What would your nature name be and why?