A tangle of spaghetti, olives, nuts, vegetables, and torn mozzarella in a no-cook, lemon-zested tomato sauce. A recipe for a hot night when tomato season is at its peak.
This is a quintessential pantry meal. I added olives, pine nuts, and a bit of cheese to the base ingredients of spaghetti and tomatoes, but you can experiment with endless other directions. I love the pine nut component here, but toasted almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts, or cashew would all be great. You could do a spicy version by adding a dollop of harissa to the sauce, or some chile flakes, or a tablespoon of toasted sesame chile oil. On the vegetable front, you see string beans pictured (because that's whats coming out of my garden right now), but load up on anything from broccoli and cauliflower florets, or asparagus - basically, any quick cooking veg that you can throw in the pasta water at the last minute.
1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil.
2. In the meantime, slice the larger tomatoes (1 1/2 pounds) into bite-sized chunks and place in a large serving bowl. Drizzle with the olive oil, sprinkle with the garlic, salt, and zest of one of the lemons. Squeeze a tablespoon of lemon juice into the mixture, and use a hand blender to pulse a few times, into a chunky sauce.
3. Salt the pasta water well, and cook the pasta per package instructions. Add the sting beans or broccoli to the pasta water in the last minute of cooking. Drain the pasta and vegetables and transfer to the bowl with the tomato sauce. Toss well. Add half the olives, half the pine nuts, and half of the cherry tomatoes. Add all of the mozzarella. Toss well, and top with the zest of the second lemon, and the remaining olives, pine nuts, and tomatoes.
4. Top with basil or lemon verbena & serve immediately.