Pasta Estivo

I have been making this delicious Spring/Summer pasta dish for the past couple weeks. I love it so much I made it 3 times in that short span! I cannot claim full credit for the recipe. I don't know which magazine I got it from but I have a feeling I ripped it out of a magazine I found while I was helping middle-schoolers do an art project. It could've been from 1998. I don't know. Recent or not I have adapted the recipe just enough to call it my own.

Ingredients:
1 C. Whole wheat rotini
about 10 sun-dried tomatos (in a jar or bag)
fresh ricotta cheese
sliced olives
1-2 Tbsp. capers
3/4 C. cherry tomatos (halved)
1/4 C.olive oil
3-4 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar

Directions:
Boil water with a dash of salt. Add rotini. While the pasta is cooking add capers, sun-dried tomatos, vinegar and olive oil to a food processors (a blender will do in a pinch). Sometimes I add pepper and italian herbs. A little hot pasta water is good to thin out the dressing a bit.
After about 10 minutes the rotini should be done. Drain in collander. Run pasta under cold water while still in collander. You don't want piping hot pasta in this dish. Put cooled pasta in a medium sized salad bowl.
Pour dressing over rotini and mix thoroughly. Add most of the olives and most of the cherry tomatos and combine with pasta. Place the few remaining olives and tomatos on top for a more aesthetically pleasing appearance. Put a dollop of ricotta (or more) on top of the pasta. Grind some pepper on top or italian herbs.

Oh Lordy. It is so good. I have a picture below. I didn't make it super fancy and presentable for this picture unfortunately, but I will do better in future.

Bon appetit!