Jamie Oliver's Pasta Salad

Ok, so what I love about this pasta salad, is that everything it chopped up into tiny bits. It is like textural thing. Does it take like half an hour to chop everything into tiny pieces? Yes. Even with my exquisite knife skillz (kidding). You could potentially just throw it in the food processor, but I just can't be that cruel to cherry tomatoes. Bottom line, I love when an otherwise normal/typical thing can be changed up so much by simply doing a fine dice.

More importantly, please check out these chicks:

Our friends have chickens. It is amazing. Aren't they so cute?

I kind of really want chickens now. They are going to have fresh eggs whenever they want. It might be the best idea ever.

Jamie Oliver’s Pasta Salad

from Happy Days with the Naked Chef

11 oz. small shell-shaped pasta

3 cloves garlic

1 pint red/yellow cherry tomatoes (or a mixture of both)

1 handful of black olives, pitted

2 tbsp fresh chives

1 handful of fresh basil

1/2 a cucumber

4 tbsp white wine vinegar

7 table spoons extra virgin olive oil

sea salt

freshly ground black pepper

Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil. Throw in the pasta and cloves of garlic, boil until al dente, drain and run under cold water to cool. Put the garlic to one side to use for the dressing. Put the pasta into a bowl. Chop the tomatoes, olives, chives, basil and cucumber into pieces about half the size of the pasta and add to the bowl. Squash the garlic cloves out of their skins and mush in a mortar and pestle. Add the vinegar, oil and seasoning. Drizzle this over the salad, adding a little more seasoning to taste.

(Servings: 4, Prep time: 30 min., Cook time: 10 min., Difficulty: Easy)