Rigatoni with feta cheese pesto and roast cherry tomatoes

One of the easiest pasta dishes! One of those which the good old housewives (like my mother) would call "laziness cooking"... mainly to indicate how free you can feel to improvise in cooking or when not too many ingredients or complicated method are involved. This recipe it's delicious in its simplicity and it is for all seasons but I think now that tomatoes are really in their season the dish is even tastier and it can be served even cold! The recipe includes some ingredients that the Greeks are passionate about: pasta, tomato and Feta cheese! It is one of those recipes which automatically gets in the "everybody eats it" category. You can substitute the rigatoni with any kind of short pasta

Cooked by Vassilis Kallides,
a prominent Head Cook and food author
from "Cook Book" magazine of "ETHNOS" newspaper



Ingredients (for 4 people):
1 packet of rigatoni pasta
300gr. of cherry tomatoes
250gr. of feta cheese, coarsely crumbled
1 tbsp of fresh oregano leaves
1 small (dried or fresh) red chili pepper, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, cut in half
6-8 tbsp of olive oil
salt

Method:
Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Cut the tomatoes in half and arrange them, cut side down, on a shallow baking dish lined with baking paper. Drizzle with some oil and bake for 30 minutes or until their skin gets dark in colour.

In a blender put the feta, the garlic, the oregano, the chili and 4 tbsp of olive oil. Whizz the ingredients in low speed until you have a thick, white mixture with the consistency of pesto.

Boil the pasta according to the packet instructions or your preference. Drain in a colander and keep aside ½ a tea-cup of the water they boiled in. Return the pasta back in the pot and drizzle over with a bit of oil.

Add in the pot the roast tomatoes, the feta pesto and the water you kept aside. Gently toss the ingredients and taste to see if any salt is needed.

Serve immediately with the oregano leaves as a garnish and drizzle on top with some more olive oil.