Thursday Recipe

For those of you who don't know, I am of Italian descent (as well as some Portuguese and some French) and I love Italian food. I grew up with Grandma's spaghetti and red sauce on Sundays and antipasto on Christmas Eve. I found this recipe from Giada De Laurentiis for a summer pasta dish. It's excellent (as most of her recipes are). I did however make one substitution. Not being a fan of red peppers, I switched those out and used sun dried tomatoes instead. Although I normally am not a fan of tomatoes, I love the sun dried ones.

Ingredients

• 1 pound rigatoni pasta
• 3 cups purchased garlic-flavored croutons, (about 5 ounces)
• 1/4 cup slivered almonds (about 1 ounce), toasted
• 1 cup sun dried tomatoes
• 3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Directions

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the pasta and cook until tender but still firm to the bite, stirring occasionally, about 8 to 10 minutes. Drain pasta into a large bowl.

Place the croutons and the almonds in a food processor. Pulse until it becomes the texture of bread crumbs. Add the crouton and almond mixture to the hot pasta. Add the tomatoes and the olive oil. Toss to combine and serve.