Dinner - Summer Vegetable Pasta

This recipe took a while for me to convince Matt about. He'll probably disagree on that... but he really doesn't like squash so he didn't want to try this initially. He did enjoy it, which was good!

Basically, this is a great pasta dish for summertime as it uses several items you can pick up fresh from your garden or local farmers market. For ours we used garlic and zucchini from our favorite stands, and basil from our own plant. It is a really simple meal, but definitely showcases the fresh grown delights in a simple fashion.

We ate this pasta dish hot, however it seems as if it would be delicious cold as well. You could probably even take it on a picnic while you savor these last days of summer (I know! I hate to say it...). You could also serve this as a side dish sort of pasta salad.

This was a very easy dish to make and took around 30 minutes from start to finish. Maybe add a few minutes extra to start the pasta water boiling. The flavor is nice and light, coming from the Swiss cheese and garlic. The vegetables add a nice healthy kick and you could probably add any other summer veggies if you'd like.

Recipe comes to us from an old issue of Everyday with Rachael Ray, and if you'd like a nice printable version, please click here!

Summer Vegetable Pasta

Ingredients:
-1 pound corkscrew pasta
-1/4 cup olive oil
-4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
-1/2 cup breadcrumbs
-3 zucchini (about 1 pound), thinly sliced (we used small green and yellow zucchini)
-4 ears corn, kernels scraped off (if you're lazy like us, just dump in a can of corn with the water drained!)
-6 ounces Swiss cheese, shredded
-Salt and pepper (to taste)
-1/4 cup finely chopped fresh basil

Cook pasta and drain, reserving 1 cup of the pasta cooking water. Keep the pot by the oven and throw the pasta in a bowl, covering with tin foil to keep warm.
In small skillet, heat 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium heat. Add half the garlic, cooking until golden, about 30 seconds, then stir in breadcrumbs and remove from heat.
Add 2 tablespoons olive oil to the large pasta pot and heat over medium, adding the remaining garlic. Cook until golden, then add the zucchini and cook, stirring, until crisp-tender (about 5 minutes).
Add corn, cooked pasta and reserved pasta water. Add 1 cup cheese and toss, seasoning with the salt and pepper.
Add remaining cheese and basil into the breadcrumb mixture.
Serve up the pasta, sprinkling each serving with some of the breadcrumb mixture.
Says it serves 4, but the way we made it looks to serve about 6.