make it seasonal, make it local

I had a temporary lapse of memory this morning so I emailed my husband several options for supper this evening. (I forgot that last night we agreed on grilled steak, Jersey corn and a salad for supper!). Two options were pasta and one was for grilled chicken. Yup, you may have guessed it, pasta is what  he chose. One of the recipes that I have for tonight's recipe is orecchiette baked with olives, vegetables and mozzarella. This recipe came out of some long ago food magazine that I had and can on longer remember the name nor have the name on the clipping.

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In any event, I purchased a one pound package of Wegmans Italian Classic Organic Orecchiette for $3.99 in anticipation of making this recipe this summer. Although I tried to purchase my veggies at the Manasquan farmers' market today, they didn't have green zucchini, so off to Whole Foods. Although my go to is Delicious Orchards, when I'm short on time, I try to get things close to the house. Whole Foods had the local produce I needed, zucchini $2.49/lb. and a New Jersey field grown tomato for $1.69/lb. I also picked up Lioni fresh mozzarella for $9.99/lb. As there are so few ingredients in this recipe, fresh mozzarella makes a difference in the taste and presentation of this dish.

Once you mix all the ingredients together, you pop it in the oven for about 10 minutes to melt the mozzarella.  The pasta was was juicy from the fresh tomatoes and zucchini in the casserole. Although I didn't have the one cup of olives the recipe called for, for the amount I had, you could still taste the brininess of the Calamata olives. Another successful meal that tasted fabulous.