This Caprese Pasta Salad Recipe incorporates all the sweet and peppery garden basil! Fresh basil pesto combines with pasta, sun-ripened garden tomatoes and fresh mozzarella. This is your new favorite summery pasta salad. Make a big bowlful, because this one goes fast.

It’s been an interesting and delicious summer around here. And I’ve got a few basil stories for you. Yep. So last summer my basil was absolutely incredible.

Lush and green, thick and fragrant. I called it bionic basil, and everyone who saw it marveled. I had more basil than I knew what to do with and plenty to share.

I buy the plants each year on Memorial Day weekend at Tanglewood Nursery, just one town over. The nursery is run by an elderly Polish couple and their son Tom.

Meander down a long, wooded winding drive in the country and you’ll come upon their modest ranch home, with three large and orderly greenhouses set behind it. All in a row.

During the warmer months they grow flowers, veggies and herbs in the greenhouses. When it’s cooler, they make and sell amazing homemade pierogi right from their kitchen. (Pierogi are delicious, stuffed Polish dumplings.)

I enjoy buying my seedlings at Tanglewood because it’s a small family-owned business and I like buying local.

And Tom does most of the growing. He treats the plants like his own children. That’s what his dad says anyway. And I believe him. All the herbs, veggies and flowers are always in top condition. Never root-bound or yellowed leaves.

Tom is knowledgeable, always willing to help. I’d been going to Tanglewood for years, and it wasn’t ’til last year I learned that he’s completely deaf. But he’s a lip reader, and obviously a good one! Truly an amazing can-do kind of person, aside from his green thumb.

So this year my basil wasn’t as prolific as usual and I lost a few plants. I’m still not sure why. (But I can promise the fault lies with me, not Tom.) My herbs are all in pots by my side door as usual. But while watering the geraniums on my front door step, I noticed basil sprouting from the pot.

Somehow it seeded itself in my flower pots on the opposite side of the house! It turned out to be the best basil of the season – produced big, fragrant and peppery leaves alongside the bright red geraniums. Perfect for all our fresh summer pizzas, salads, and pestos.

This summer I discovered how resilient basil can be. I snipped a big bunch to take with us on vacation to the Cape. Put it in water in a big glass mason jar. I was going to use some in recipes and also gift some to my aunt, who we’d see on vacation. We left for the Cape on a warm Sunday morning, packed the car early, stopping in for church on our way down.

The day heated up and the basil sat in a fairly warm car. It was pretty wilted when we got back to the car a few hours later. We all thought it was done for, but then the air kicked in and it started perking up. A few hours later when we got to the Cape, it looked nearly perfect again. That bionic basil.

During the week we visited my aunt and uncle in Mashpee and I forgot to bring some along. So by week’s end, we still had plenty in the jar. We checked out of the cottage rental mid-morning on a Saturday, then spent the entire day at Megansett Beach in Falmouth. It was a scorcher, and the basil sat in the front seat console, baking in the sun.

By the time we left the beach around 5ish to head home, the basil was completely wilted. Dead. Or so we thought. Because slowly over the several hour ride home to New Hampshire it rallied. And by the next morning? A few dead leaves, but otherwise, completely fine. Crazy.

Several days later it actually started rooting. And now, weeks later, it’s still going strong on my kitchen counter. I tell you, my bionic basil has nine lives!

This Caprese Pasta Salad Recipe is so easy to assemble. Use store bought pesto, or while your pasta cooks, make a fresh basil pesto in the food processor. Combine pesto, pasta, garden tomatoes and fresh mozzarella. Stir to combine. This makes a beautiful and delicious summery pasta salad for all the picnics and barbecues!

Print

Summery Caprese Pasta Salad Recipe

Fresh basil pesto combines with pasta, sun-ripened garden tomatoes and fresh mozzarella.

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes minutes

Total Time 20 minutes minutes

Servings 8 servings

Author Allie

Ingredients

• 12 ounces semolina pasta I used radiatore
• 1 pint grape or cherry tomatoes halved or quartered
• 8 ounces fresh mozzarella balls halved or quartered
• 1/2 cup fresh basil leaves snipped into thin strips
• 1 cup fresh pesto
• salt and pepper
• Or make fresh basil pesto w/ the ingredients below
• 1 1/2 cups fresh basil leaves packed
• 1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
• 2 cloves garlic
• olive oil

Instructions

• Cook pasta according to package directions.
• Rinse and set aside to cool.
• If making fresh pesto, add 1 1/2 cups basil leaves, grated parmesan cheese and garlic cloves to food processor.
• Process with just enough olive oil to make a thick pesto. Set aside.
• Combine chopped tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, pesto, chopped basil and pasta in a large serving bowl.
• Allow to sit for a few minutes for flavors to meld before serving.

Notes

I loved using the radiatore pasta because the pesto stuck in all the crevices! Mmmm. A smaller pasta seems to work best for this salad.

You may also like: Caprese Pesto Flatbread

The post Summery Caprese Pasta Salad Recipe appeared first on Through Her Looking Glass.

Hey friend – how are you today? Hope you’re having a great weekend.

(Are you?)

So let’s go on a field trip to The Cape today. You in?

I’ve had a love relationship with Cape Cod for many years now. I know when it started. Years ago (more than I like to think!) my family vacationed there for a couple weeks most summers. I nearly always celebrated my July birthday there. We rented a cottage near a little beach in Chatham at The Farmer in the Dell. If I remember correctly, the cottage had a mother-in-law suite on the back. We kids stayed in the front part and my mom and dad stayed in the suite. There were five of us kids. And as a mother of four now, I can imagine what a wonderful arrangement that would be. A little time and space is a wonderful thing, and my mom and dad had a good thing going.

Sadly, The Farmer in the Dell is no longer there. It was razed to make room for condos. Wish I could take my kids there now, show them the little cottage and beach where we stayed.

My little Charlie crawling the Hyannisport green in 2007.

After moving back to New England in 2004, we visit The Cape whenever we can. We’ve had a few lovely vacations there and were stoked to visit just a few weeks ago.

There are so many things about The Cape I adore. Salty air. Cape style houses. Weathered shingles. Manicured lawns. Seafood. Blue hydrangeas. Coastal charm. Rocky coast. Anchored sailboats. Lighthouses. Saltwater taffy. Seafood. Homemade ice-cream. Awesome thrifts shops. Yeah. Seriously, I could go on and on.

(And on.)

A lovely little cove in Woods Hole.

I get this funny feeling every time I drive across the Bourne Bridge onto Cape Cod. Butterflies. That little kid anticipation of wonderful things to come.

Something must have been pretty funny that day on the Mayflower II in Plymouth. (Apparently no one clued in my boys.)

So we spent some time on The Cape just a few weeks ago. I had lots of ideas beforehand about what I’d write about for you here. Hoped to visit fun places, show you the best of the Cape. Things didn’t quite work out that way. Jon was working that week and I was too. Hudson had a rough week being out of his element. (Hudson’s five, has Down syndrome.) So a lot didn’t go as planned. Don’t get me wrong, we had a great week. It just wasn’t what I’d pictured in my mind’s eye.

Fell in love with this beach house in Falmouth. I think it was the roses and the porch.

So I thought, maybe I’ll go for a walk from the cottage, scout out some fun sights to share with you. Well Hudson has a lot of rules. And he’s been trying to teach us those rules for years now. And we just aren’t catching on so well. One of his rules is the stroller can’t stop rolling. And when it does, he’s ticked. And he yells.

Like, really yells.

So it was tough trying to take pictures on the walk. The first ones came out blurry. So I took him on a second walk the next day, tried to catch some fun shots. I didn’t get many not to mention my little peanut gallery was in fine form. Thankfully on that second walk he finally fell asleep and I was like YAY! Now I can get some pictures.

Until I remembered that when he’s sleeping and the stroller stops he wakes up. And yells. Another of his rules. It’s a real catch. Catch 22. Yup, Hudson has a lot of rules. I’ve been meaning to write a post and catalog some of them here…that will come.

Taylor family on the Cape in 2011 after seafood….

So I’m dying to tell you about one of my favorite finds ever on the Cape. It was at a thrift store, Trash ‘n Treasures in the lower level of the West Dennis Community Church six or seven years ago.

I found a whole pile of these amazing, whimsical and detailed maps from 1932 in a box on an upper shelf. They were $6 each. $6 folks.

Apparently drawn by a famous architect of the day, Walter M. Gaffney of Hyannis. The girl at the register told me more details of the story, and sadly most of them escape me now. But honestly, I could KICK myself. Because I bought one copy. Yeah, one. Things were tight and our vacation budget was already spent. Seriously wish I’d bought the whole lot. Because if you’re a Cape lover (and who’s not?) you’d kill for a copy of this awesome map. It would’ve made a great Christmas gift for friends and family. I’ve been regretting not buying that box of maps for years now. I got ours framed and smile every time I walk by. Reminds me of so many great memories over the years.

(FYI, there’s a pamphlet entitled Touring the Thrift Shops of Cape Cod available at all the Cape Cod visitor centers if you like that sort of thing.)

Hudson and me enjoying a little nose to nose at the beach.

Hudson begins his troubled relationship with beach sand (Read more: Stalker) on a Dennis beach in 2011. (I get a charge out of this picture.)

Sure do love this patriotic hedge….

Thankful for kind friends who loaned us their beautiful beach cottage in Falmouth several weeks ago, and hope you enjoyed these delightful little glimpses of Cape Cod in summer….

If you ever get the chance to visit The Cape, JUMP! JUMP HIGH! You won’t regret it.

Hope you’re having a great weekend. Would love to hear your fun Cape memories. Or what you’re up to this weekend…

You may also enjoy: She Picked Up Her Pen

The post The Cape appeared first on Through Her Looking Glass.