Pesto Pasta with Roasted Tomatoes

One of our Resolutions for this year was to stick within a budget.

But, we always seem to go over our budget in the "restaurants" category.

Thing have calmed down a little bit for the semester, so I decided to use some of my extra time to try a new recipe with Paul.

I cracked open "Our Best Bites" Cookbook (Thanks Annette!)

and found a yummy and reasonably easy recipe:

Pesto Pasta with Roasted Tomatoes:

 1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes

8 oz mushrooms, sliced (about 3 cups)

3-4 Tbsp EVOO

Kosher Salt & Ground Black Pepper

8 oz farfalle or bowtie pasta

1/4 cup pine nuts

1/2 cup pesto

1/3 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

1. Preheat oven to 425 degees. Bring a large pot of water to boil.

2. Place tomatoes and mushrooms on a foil-lined baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil. Toss with your fingers, making sure everything is coated with olive oil. Sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper. Cook for 12-15 min or until tomatoes look plump and some of the skins just start to split.

3. When the water comes to a boil, add 2 tsp salt and pasta to the water and cook according to package directions

4. While the pasta is cooking, place the pine nuts in a small skillet over medium heat. Stir frequently until the nuts turn golden brown and look slightly glossy, about 7-9 minutes

5. To assemble, toss the hot drained pasta with pesto and Parmesan cheese. Top with tomatoes and mushrooms and sprinkle with toasted pine nuts and additional Parmesan cheese if desired.

Makes 4 main dish servings or 6 side dish servings

If I can do this, anyone can.

We would have loved the pine nuts, but due to cost, we left them out.

I also think we should have left our tomatoes/mushrooms in the oven a little bit longer. They were warm and delicious, but not all of them got wrinkled and split like they were supposed to.

We served ours with garlic seasoned chicken and homemade rolls.

We'll definitely be having this again.

I wish all of the tomatoes were like the one on the bottom right!

We also did a poor job when we split up the tomatoes and mushrooms between the pasta.

We used 1/2 the tomatoes and mushrooms on 1/3 of the pasta. 

That's why there are SO many on my serving. Whoops!

Easily makes 6 servings of the above size.