Sun-Dried Tomato and Goat Cheese Rigatoni

Today I came home from work ready to make dinner for my parents and my cousin and found a great surprise! A (very) early Birthday gift from my parents... a Kitchen Aid! I'm prepared to make some homemade pizza this weekend and this will come in VERY handy when making the dough! I can't wait to get to know this mixer! Yay!

Onto the stars of the evening, the Sun-Dried Tomato and Goat Cheese Rigatoni with a side of garlic bread!

For the pasta I tweaked the recipe just a tiny bit, by adding in about 1 Tbs Truffle Oil and about 1/2 Tbs sauteed garlic. Here is the link to the original recipe...GoodMoodFood Blog. My only regret is that I didn't use more basil, but it's so damn expensive and being someone who grows it during the summer, I absolutely refuse to spend much on it even though basil is one of my favorite herbs. The store bought isn't as good as home grown, and unless you go to a fruit market (which isn't usually convenient for me during the week), you are going to pay an arm and a leg. Oh, Summer where are you!? Other than that, I was very happy with the way this pasta turned out.

Rinsing the fresh basil and parsley...

Sun-Dried tomatoes with the oil seperated...

While the pasta is cooking, remove the tomatoes from the oil they are stored and set aside to add to the pasta later. Roughly chop the basil leaves and sundried tomatoes and set aside.

This is where I added the Truffle Oil and sauteed garlic to put my own spin on it!
 

Once the pasta is cooked, you pour in the oil from the tomatoes.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

And now it's time to mix in the rest of your goodies!

When the pasta started to cook, I put some garlic bread in the oven. I've only made garlic bread once or twice before, and each time I've pretty much winged it. None of those times have been too successful, so I pulled up a recipe. (You can too, by clicking here!) Next time I will use a little less butter, but other than that, this recipe is spot on delicious! (I also used fresh bread from a French Bakery... yum!)
 

Ingredients

1 16-ounce loaf of Italian bread or French bread


1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened


2 large cloves of garlic, smashed and minced


1 heaping tablespoon of freshly chopped parsley


1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese (optional)


I went with Method 1 here (there is another baking method on the recipe), as I really like my garlic bread crispy. Be VERY careful if you use a broiler. It calls for 3 minutes, but I took it out after 2. That was all it needed after it's 10 minutes in the oven. It was crispy, but not burnt.

In this easy recipe, all you do is mix the butter, parsley and garlic in a bowl, spread it over the bread (cut lengthwise), and bake. Easy!
 
 
The parsley is the perfect touch on here!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Dinner was done, and Dad even went back for seconds!