Caprese Pasta Salad, Easy and Perfect for Summer

I am very excited to be sharing this recipe here today. I am not a fabulously gifted cook, actually, I’m a regular person who really likes eating, and I try to eat healthy, so when I stumbled upon this ridiculously easy recipe on Sandra Woodruff’s The Good Carb Cookbook (I seriously recommend this book if you can’t face the low-carb diet like me), I had to share with everyone.

Ingredients:

• 8 oz (225 g) Whole Wheat Pasta (I like Barilla’s Whole Grain Penne or Rotini)
• 3 cups of diced tomatoes
• 1/2 cup fresh basil
• 1/2 cup diced fresh mozzarella
• 1 to 2 tbsp minced garlic
• 1 to 2 tbsp of Olive Oil
• Salt and Black Pepper

Preparation:

The preparation basically consists of cooking the pasta (we’ve all done that), then mixing up the rest of the ingredients together and dumping everything on top of the pasta and mix it together. Yes, THAT easy. Serve it cold.

I think this recipe is perfect for summer, and it sits well in the fridge over night, so you can prepare it and take it to work, or to a picnic (oh, there’s a good idea).

According to Sandra Woodruff’s original recipe (I substituted the Parmesan cheese she asked for fresh mozarella because it matched better with the test of the other ingredients) this recipe is good for 4 servings of 1 and 3/4 cup each. It has about 300 calories per serving, 49 g of carbs and 11 g of protein.

If you prepare this recipe, let me know how it goes! And if you want more recipes of this kind, do get the The Good Carb Cookbook, it’s one of my favorites for healthy eating. There’s some pretty nice pancake and muffin recipes too. Just too much good stuff, and you can be healthy and eat a somewhat low-carb diet without going hungry!

Wanderlust – Isle of Skye, Scotland

The Old Man of Storr on the Isle of Skye, Scotland

Looking through Pinterest this morning, I saw a photo of the gorgeous Isle of Skye, Scotland, and decided to add it to the places I’d like to visit someday with my camera in tow. Besides the beautiful locations, I also checked out the Isle’s average temperatures through the year, and it seems they are always between 2 and 15C, which reads “awesome temperatures” in my book. Not too hot, but probably fairly cold since it is an Island and probably pretty humid. I can deal with it.

A long time ago I read a novel set in the island, Lady of Skye, by Meg Cabot. It was a cute novel, but now I wish I remembered more about the tidbits about the island, and less about the medical drama going on, not that it wasn’t entertaining, let me assure you. I guess in the meantime, I’ll just spend time online doing research about the island, and making plans on how to include it on a trip. It’s time to go back to the UK, after all.

Photos: Main. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.