my domino (again)

Saturday we got our flu shots.

Afterwards, I laid low unlike "the other person" in the house, who met up with a friend afterwards.

Didn’t feel like cooking, so I ordered us the My Domino pasta bowls to try

Satoshi had the Garlic Master, cheese sticks (extra 30 yen) & steak fries (no photo)

He ate his way later than I did, but said it had lots of garlic and the garlic was kind of bitter/burnt.

I ordered the kalbi pasta, with grilled chicken (extra 50 yen) & steak fries as my sides…the kalbi was sweet salty, love!

I am glad we checked out the more "extravagant" sides, the chicken was kinda teeny and really salty...if I do order this the next time I would try to order steak fries twice and the pizza.

These pasta bowls while tasty, all the cheese kinda gets "baked"/stuck into the foil pan's grooves...boo!

(the advertisement for these are in paper bowls, which would've been better I think)

Anyway, I'm still glad we got to try these.

akihabara

The LCD (liquid crystal display) on our landline phone died a while back and we finally got around to buying a new phone.

The phone that died had a fax machine attached to it but we rarely use it these days, so we got a phone without the fax option.

My only peeve with this new phone is that the display is all in katakana...oh well, at least we can now see who is calling...

Lunch was at Spajiro...which I think is a combination of the words spaghetti and Jiro...

I got the Wa-style Basilico...this had shiso (perilla) bacon and a chili oil sauce.

This was tasty but didn't really look too pretty.

I did like the fact that you can choose the amount of pasta you wanted.

Small is 100 grams, Medium 120 grams, Large 170 grams.

Satoshi had the salmon with mentaiko (spicy pollack roe) cream pasta which he said he enjoyed.

After lunch, we bought some doughnuts from Jack in the Donuts and snuck them into Starbucks so we could have them with coffee.

Satoshi had the chocolate fashion...a cake doughnut covered with chocolate.

I chose the oliebollen cinnamon...while there were a lot of raisins in this there wasn't too much flavor.

Still, we were glad we tried this place.

We'll be back to these places to try other things off their menus when we are in the area.

When we lived in Osaka, Yodobashi Camera was closer.

We don't get to Akihabara too often, but it definitely is great to look for electric gadgets here.

Spajiro
Yodobashi Akiba 8F
Akihabara, Tokyo
Phone: 03.6206.0950
Hours: 11:00-23:00
Open when Yodobashi Akiba is

Jack in the Donuts
Yodobashi Akiba 1F
Akihabara, Tokyo
Phone: 03.3525.4512
Hours: 9:30-22:00
Open when Yodobashi Akiba is

re-vamp

Re-vamped the Italian Delight recipe, a baked pasta that my mom used to make.

Instead of putting it in the oven, I just put everything together in the frying pan that I sauteed the meat in.

I also added some diced pumpkin and spinach and sauteed it with the meat.

The cheese does not get brown, but when you are hungry and want to eat right away, this is a fast way to get dinner on the table.

Have a nice weekend!

reconnect

Reconnected with J on Thursday.

When we first moved to Japan back in 2001 (pre-blog), J and her family also lived in the same company housing complex as we did.

Over the years, we've kept in touch through new years cards.

There was lots to catch up on since we hadn't seen each other since 2001.

Lunch was pepperoni pizza, bolognese pasta and house green salad at CPK and dessert at Eggs'n Things...my first time eating at these places in Japan.

Monster whipped cream topping on the pancakes! (and very lightly sweetened!)

The memory I have of eating at Eggs'n Things at their very first location (and at the time only location) on Kalakaua one Sunday morning has no whipped cream whatsoever...

(I think Japan has 10+ locations in various prefectures.)

Chocolate sauce on the side to drizzle and a little coconut syrup (there was also maple syrup & guava syrup that you could use too)...so good!

It was nice catching up and reconnecting, I hope we can do it again soon.

CPK (California Pizza Kitchen)
Lazona Kawasaki 4F
Kawasaki, Kanagawa

Eggs'n Things
Lazona Kawasaki 4F
Kawasaki, Kanagawa

p.s. Golden Week (GW) starts today, we'll be off the grid for the most part (though I may update on Instagram)...I'll update here after GW ends on May 7...be well everyone!

pizzaman

One of Satoshi's friends lives in Oimachi, so after walking around after our monja lunch, we decided to find a place for dinner in Oimachi.

There was a place that he has been wanting to try but there was always a line...Pizzaman.

This shop looks like an old military barrack, round on the top, made of corrugated metal.

Inside it is rather noisy.

The pizza comes out quick from their wood burning oven.

We shared their margherita, daily special pizzas, an order of fries and a bottle of wine...the crust was so good!

The daily special pizza had all sorts of different grilled veggies on it.

And the fries were crispy....mmm.

Make reservations if possible, otherwise you'll need to wait for a table.

They also have salads and pastas.

I'm glad we tried this place and look forward to coming back.

Pizzaman (UPDATE: closed 2022)
1-11-8 Oi
Shinagawa, Tokyo
Phone: 03.3774.0900
Closed Mondays
Hours: 11:30-14:00 (lunch), 18:00-21:00 (dinner)

reconnect

Over the summer I reconnected with a dish from my past...Italian Delight.

I didn't realize this but the recipe was actually from my Grandma's stash of recipes.

My mom used to make this and freeze some for a weekday dinner, just popping it into the oven before eating.

Italian Delight : not sure where the original recipe is from

Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground beef (about 450 grams)
• 1/2 cup salad oil (use just enough to brown ground beef)
• 1 onion chopped
• 1 clove garlic minced
• 1 green pepper chopped (optional)
• 1-8 ounce can tomato sauce (about 226 grams)
• 1 can cream of mushroom soup
• 1/4 teaspoon crumbled dried oregano
• 1/4 teaspoon thyme
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce
• 1-3 ounce can sliced mushrooms (about 80 grams)
• 1-8 ounce pkg spaghetti (about 226 grams)
• 1-12 ounce can whole kernel corn (about 340 grams)
• 1 cup grated cheddar cheese
• Salt and Pepper to taste.

Directions:

Cook spaghetti according to directions, drain.

Brown ground beef in oil with minced garlic.

Add onions, corn and saute.

Add rest of ingredients, except cheese and spaghetti.

Cook for 10 minutes.

Mix spaghetti in sauce.

Place in 3-quart casserole dish.

Sprinkle with cheese (about a cup).

Bake at 350F (180C) for 40 minutes.

NOTES: My grandma's version uses spaghetti noodles, but my mom's version uses macaroni.

I added my own addition of fresh maitake (hen of woods), eliminating the oil to cook the meat and also eliminated the can of sliced mushrooms and worcestershire (didn't have any).

My supermarket didn't have tomato sauce, so I used a can of crushed tomatoes.

Also, as I was looking for local beef, I ended up getting little amounts of local ground chicken, pork and beef instead.

My oven isn't too big, so I baked everything in a square pyrex dish for the 40 minutes, uncovered.

This was perfect comfort food for the day after that krazy typhoon...

using up some leftovers

The other night for dinner, I wanted to use up the leftover chicken I had made.

I also had some cheese that I wanted to use up too, so I thought baking it with some veggies and a little pasta would be a good way.

I was feeling a bit lazy and didn't want to grease any pans to bake everything in, so I decided to make individual origami boxes out of parchment paper.

If you'd like to try, take a 20 cm (7.8 inches) x 30 cm (11 inches) piece of parchment and follow these directions here.

I sautéed some spinach, red bell pepper, onion and maitake in some olive oil.

I also made a béchamel sauce using this recipe and used soy milk in place of the milk.

The cheese didn't brown up as I had envisioned, but it was a delicious way to use up some leftovers and clean-up was a snap.

If you do use the parchment origami boxes to bake in, do not place them directly onto the rack, instead use a metal tray.

Enjoy!

re-creation

After making rafute and andasu, I did something I've been wanting to do for some time now...

Re-create Off the Wall's Shoyu Pork Pasta.

The flavors were a little lighter than theirs but still delicious.

Chop up some shoyu pork, I used some pieces of rafute.
Boil some okinawan soba, I think you could use fettuccine as a substitute.
Cut up some mustard cabbage, I used komatsuna (Japanese mustard cabbage)
some of the "gravy" from the shoyu pork
some butter
green onion some to garnish, some to cook with komatsuna

In a pan, put the komatsuna and green onion to start cooking it.
Add the pork to heat through and then add the cooked noodles
Add the gravy and coat everything with it
Then add some butter at the end
Serve immediately

I know, it's not really a recipe...

NOTES: This was really easy and really delicious, nice with beer. I froze a couple of pieces of rafute to make this again.

What have you been enjoying?

mac n cheese

Satoshi went off on business and it was just me for a couple of days, I usually don't cook when he's away, but for some reason I had mac n cheese on my mind and it had to be a creamy cheesy sauce...sigh! so I decided to make mac n cheese for dinner.

noodles:
1 package of macaroni (150 grams)
water

goodies:
1/2 tablespoon olive oil
1/8 of an onion, minced
1/2 a carrot diced
1/4 red bell pepper, diced
1 large eringi, diced
3 small slices of bacon, diced
1/2 small can of whole corn, rinsed

cheese sauce:
bechamel sauce (minus the salt, scallions & amount of parmesan, and add the amount of cheese that follows) :
3 slices of red cheddar, 2 small triangles of edam and 3 tablespoons of parmesan cheese.

Italian parsley

NOTES: I cooked my pasta 1 minute less than what the package said and drained it after it was cooked.

Then I sauteed the "goodies" in 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil and set it aside. And added the whole corn without heating it.

I then made the cheese sauce using the recipe for bechamel sauce (leaving out the salt, scallions & parmesan because I was adding cheese) and added the above amounts of cheese.

When the cheese was melted, I added the "goodies" and pasta and made sure everything was coated nicely with the cheese sauce.

I threw in a good sized handful of chopped Italian parsley and mixed that in as well.

I loved it! it was cheesy and hit the spot.

It's Friday here, I hope you have a great weekend!

eringi ragout

There is a dish at Capricciosa (a chain Italian restaurant) that I like to get, their spicy eringi ragout with pappardalle.

I tried to recreate it the other night for dinner and I think I came quite close.

Here's what I did: makes 2 servings

1/2 tablespoon olive oil
1/8 onion, minced
1/2 clove of garlic, minced
pinch of chili flakes
1/4 red bell pepper, diced
180 grams ground beef pork mixture
2 small bunches of spinach, cleaned and cut to bite sized pieces
5 eringi, sliced thin

1 tablespoon tonkatsu sauce
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 cup leftover creamy tomato soup
salt, pepper

2 servings pasta, cooked

Heat oil in a frying pan and add the onions, garlic and chili.
Then add the red bell pepper, meat & spinach
When the meat changes color, add the eringi
Then when the eringi starts to cook through add the tonkatsu sauce, tomato paste and leftover soup

The sauce should start to get thick after a couple of minutes.
Add salt and pepper to taste.

Cook your pasta according to package directions and drain but do not rinse.
Scoop sauce over your pasta and serve.

NOTES: I liked this, it was similar to the one at Capricciosa and had more "stuff" in it than theirs. Plus with the addition of eringi, you can cut back the amount of meat you add to this sauce. If you don't have tonkatsu sauce, use worcestershire sauce.

I'm making this again.

happy earth day

I was reminded by the little news area on the Yahoo page that today is Earth Day.

When I think of Earth Day, somehow I think of the color "green".

Coincidentally, last night for dinner we had this...

Tara (codfish) marinated in basil oil served with zucchini & asparagus sauteed in pesto and served over some pasta.

The tara was sold already marinated...98 yen a piece (about US$.98), more than basil oil, this tasted like Italian dressing.

Zucchini is in season here from Miyazaki prefecture...98 yen (about US$.98)

And the asparagus from Kumamoto prefecture was 198 yen (about U$1.98) for 5 stalks...I think there was some from Mexico for 98 yen (about US$.98) for 5 stalks, but I am trying to buy more "Japan" items...I just wish they sold asparagus in larger bunches...

Our weather has turned back to cold...the past couple of days we had rain and the temps went down to like 9C (48F)?!

I'm all for cooler weather because I don't like the humidity of Japan's rainy season and summers, though, I'd really like to start wearing sandals instead of covered shoes and this weather isn't going to help the farmers...

It is Friday here, hope your weekend is a nice one!

#twitterfoodparty

Today is the virtual pasta party on Twitter, just search #twitterfoodparty and you'll be able to see everyone's dishes.

I actually made this dish for Sunday's dinner because during the week Satoshi doesn't eat until really late, so having him eat pasta during the week is a no-no.

I was in the mood for a baked pasta dish with lots of veggies: leftover roasted cauliflower, roasted pumpkin.

I also sauteed some red bell pepper, eringi mushroom, shimeji mushroom and onion in homemade mac nut pesto, then added in the roasted cauliflower & pumpkin at the end because they were "pre-cooked".

The pasta I used was anelli (aka spaghetti-o's), which I got from Rowena awhile back.

I also made a bechamel sauce using this recipe. The bechamel calls for an addition of parmesan but I didn't.

Tossed everything in the sauce to coat then I divided everything into two baking dishes.

Since I didn't add the parmesan to the bechamel, I instead topped each baking dish with a slice of cheese.

I baked these for about 10 minutes under the broiler.

This was delicious, I loved all the veggies and creaminess...comfort food!

Can't wait to see what deliciousness everyone else has made...

foodie find

I'd been reading about Manchego and Comte cheeses for some time now on many blogs, so I was happy to "run into" them at a department store cheese section recently.

They were pricey, but I figured buying some would be the fastest way to taste them rather than wait until I had a chance to try them at a restaurant. The Comte was 104 grams for 1048 yen (about US$10.48), and the Manchego was 117 grams for 1106 yen (about US$11.06).

The Comte cheese is made in France from cow's milk. This was slightly hard with a mild flavor. It reminded me of swiss cheese. The Manchego cheese is made in Spain from goat's milk. This was softer with a tangy flavor.

I grated 31 grams of the Comte and 36 grams of the Manchego for a baked pasta.

For the filling, I sauteed eggplant, onion, red bell pepper with a tablespoon of EVOO.

Then with a cup of skim milk, I mixed in some whole seed mustard, cayenne, black pepper, oregano and nutmeg. I stirred this mixture with the veggie and warmed up the milk.

Instead of macaroni, I used shells.

While assembling everything, I crumbled two slices of crispy bacon into a paper towel to get out as much oil as possible, then sprinkled the bacon onto the shells.

I then poured the milk-veg mixture over and then sprinkled the cheese.

The pasta baked in a 190C (375F) oven for 20 minutes, just until the cheese melted.

It was great comfort food on a rainy evening. I want to try the rest of the cheeses with wine.

more recipes from ellie

So I've been trying various recipes from Ellie Krieger's "The Food You Crave", a recent trial was her Pasta Puttanesca, it was easy to put together.

I couldn't find arugula so I put in some sliced red leaf lettuce. Also, I roasted the garlic that needed to go into the sauce.

Her recipe uses whole wheat pasta, which I was happy to find at the gourmet supermarket. This was really flavorful and delicious.

On another night for dinner, I tried her Penne with Roasted Tomatoes, Garlic and White Beans. This was good and FAST! The thing that took the longest was roasting the tomatoes and garlic. I used whole wheat penne and dried basil since I didn't have fresh. The flavors are light and refreshing. The beans give it a little creaminess.

I served the pasta with some fresh peas, pancetta, onions and eringi sauteed in olive oil and pepper.

Now while I would like to say that all of Ellie's recipes are great, I found one that wasn't...the whole wheat pancakes. She says after putting the batter together, "the batter will be lumpy". Um, yeah and there will also be lumps of flour when the pancakes are cooked...blah. Sorry Ellie, but the next time I make this, there will be no lumps.

Okay, so far that one recipe was a bad one, but only because of the lumps. I'm happy with the majority of the ones I have tried. They are easy and best of all you know they are healthy. I'm still inspired to try more recipes from this book.

foodie kind of weekend

Saturday was a nice day. Great for laundry.

After a couple of loads, we decided to go to Ikeda. Satoshi wanted to check out their rakugo museum. On the way, we stopped into Yuan for lunch. This place is run by Toyosu, a local arare (rice cracker) maker. I had the o-makase (leave it up to the chef) set.

It came with a mini dessert. I chose the kurogoma dango (black sesame dumplings)--rice dumplings covered with a black sesame sauce.

After lunch, we walked about 30 minutes to Ikeda.


The Rakugo museum opened sometime last year. Rakugo is a "sit-down" comedy that has quite a long history. It is part story telling and part comedy. I once saw an english version of Rakugo at the University of Hawaii.


One of Satoshi's co-workers does rakugo as an amateur. Rakugo is still quite popular in Osaka. This museum is free to the public and there is even a viewing area where you can borrow DVD to watch in the area. There were quite a number of people laughing out loud with their headsets on. Kind of fun to watch these people.

Sunday was another great day. Since we didn't want to stay indoors, we decided to go to Nakayama after lunch. Nakayama is about 5 stations from where we live. We stopped in to Marie-Ange for dessert. The cafe area seats only 10 people, but since it was Sunday, no one was there. Satoshi chose the Sakura (cherry blossom) roll--a vanilla sponge cake filled with cream and a sakura an (cherry flavored sweet bean paste) in the middle.

I chose the chiboust. A flaky crust filled with bananas and topped with chiboust cream. The sugary top was caramelized, like a creme brulee.

Delicious! The best part of this cafe was that they had free re-fills of coffee, something that is unheard of in Japan!

After dessert, we went to the grocery store. I wanted parmigiano reggiano...and was surprised, as the price has since doubled since the last time I bought a slice. 80g is now 1000 yen (about US$10)!

We used the cheese very sparingly on our pasta for dinner. Peas are in season now, so I added some to our pasta.

It looks like the houses on the other side of our building will be torn down. They vacated the houses and have started putting up the poles to attach dust curtains. Hopefully it won't be too dusty.

Hope your week is a good one!

trying new recipes

Well, the weather is....still warm (I guess I did jinx myself). The weather people have compared it to mid-August temps during the day...blah. I learned something new the other night, the weather guy said that the wispy clouds are autumn clouds and the fluffy ones are summer clouds. So as you can see from the photo, even the sky is confused as to what season it is...sigh. Oh, and if you see a jet stream and it stays in the sky for a long time, this means it will rain and if it fades quickly the weather will stay sunny....

Yesterday, I was in a procrastinating kind of mood with my bead project, so I decided to eat all day and tried some new recipes.

There was banh mi for lunch. The post on Tamarind and Thyme led me to Viet World Kitchen which gave a recipe for the veggies that go inside of a banh mi. This sandwich reminded me of the sandwiches I've had at Ba-le in Hawaii. I think if I had some fish sauce it would have tasted a little more authentic.

And then these petit mont blancs from one of my cookbooks for a mid-afternoon tea. The topping which is usually a chestnut mixture, is made from sweet potatoes instead. The bottom was a cookie, not the usual cake. The only problem I had was piping (as you can probably tell). Using my tiny food processor, the sweet potato didn't get as smooth as I would have liked it, so when I was piping, bits got stuck in the frosting tip and would blast itself out...I'm lucky it wasn't more messy. These were super easy (aside from the piping) to make and a very nice snack. (the two in the background are for Satoshi)

And then there was Amy's penne alla vodka for dinner. I didn't have vodka in the house, only shochu (which is like sake but made from potatoes or barley and stronger than sake), so I guess mine should be called penne alla shochu. I liked this recipe, it tasted like something I've had in a restaurant before. Too bad I didn't buy more baguettes, so I could mop up the sauce!

I love the internet! All the exchanging of information at my fingertips.

Hope you have a nice weekend, we have ANOTHER 3-day weekend (although Satoshi has to work today)....I guess I better get beading.

UPDATE: I switch out cream with skim milk in the Penne alla Vodka sauce to cut back a little of the calories and sometimes just make the sauce so we can dip bread into it.

meyer lemons

Earlier in the year, I had seen many posts about Meyer lemons. I've never tried them, but they sound really wonderful.

The other day while Satoshi and I were shopping, we came across Meyer lemons...from New Zealand! The color of these lemons were a bit orangey not the "lemony" yellow that I'm used to seeing. Even though they were pricey, I wanted to try them.

I zested one of the lemons and kept it aside to make scones. With the juice, I made this refreshing pasta with shrimp, capers, garlic and veggies for our dinner one night.

With the second lemon, I zested it again and used both the juice and zest to make my favorite lemon oregano vinaigrette. Doesn't the lettuce I bought for salad look beautiful? They call it "bouquet" lettuce. The one head comes in this BIG wasteful plastic container so that the fragile leaves don't get bruised (the sad price to pay to have non-bruised lettuce). It was the first time I've seen this type of lettuce in the market and it was love at first sight. Although the price would end the relationship...it was expensive...

Since I still had some cream leftover from making cheesecake (which I'll post about later), I used it to make earl grey scones and added the Meyer lemon zest I had set aside. The aroma of these guys coming out of the oven was heavenly! Of course, I had to taste one as soon as it came out of the oven. Delicious!

I was wondering though, are the skins of this variety of lemon softer than regular lemons? They were very easy to juice and zest. Still, I'm happy I was able to try them.

another kind of latte

I know I've been whining endlessly about how scorching it is outside, but inside with the a/c on, brrr...it is cold.

I wanted to use up some matcha (green tea) & kinako (powdered soy bean) that I had, so I looked in a cookbook and found a recipe for matcha milk (green tea milk). I used the recipe and substituted the matcha with the kinako/matcha mixture.

Kinako Matcha Latte adapted from "Onomimono wa ikaga desu ka?"

Put one teaspoon of the matcha/kinako mixture into a pot with one tablespoon of sugar and one cup of milk. Heat. Using a milk frother, whip it up. Add a dash of the matcha/kinako powder on top for decoration. (If you don't have kinako, just make this with matcha only.)

The froth wasn't as thick as when you froth up milk alone, but it was really easy, a little sweet (not as sweet as Starbucks chai latte, which is way too sweet for me) and tasted wonderful.

Changing the subject, as I was cooking pasta for my dinner, I noticed the clouds outside.






When I looked in this direction, the clouds looked like they were bursting out from one point.



And these just looked huge--something I have never seen before.

Hope you are beating the heat where you are!

what? another election?

Well, it turned out that it was too hot and humid to go galivanting yesterday, but since I still needed some things for dinner, I did go grocery shopping while Satoshi went to his German class. The supermarket was packed! I guess everyone knows that it is a great place to cool off.

I decided to make a variation of the reisei pasta that I made the other day. Instead of tuna, I added tako(octopus), some lemon juice and lettuce. Very refreshing!




And for dessert, I made mini blueberry clafoutis. I used the same recipe I posted before, put some lemon zest into the batter and topped the clafoutis with lavender sugar. Heavenly!

Since there was nothing but election results on tv tonight (what? another election?)we were watching some DVDs--(can you believe Japan is having another election? At least the loud speakers during Kat's nap time were non-existent this time around.) Awhile back I told you about Li Hing popcorn which I picked up while I was home? Well, we finally got around to eating the next flavor that I picked up....Korean BBQ.

I was quite disappointed with this one. Somehow the flavor packet was weak and tasted mostly of furikake and arare. And why is it that the arare (rice crackers) that come with the furikake are always stale? I wonder if they get stale when you mix it with the butter? Maybe the packaging isn't very airtight. Either that or I'm spoiled with the fresh arare that I eat here. I have a feeling it might be the latter.

So back to the election, Satoshi says it is because the rest of the government do not like the current prime minister, so they are having an election to change the prime minister. Apparently whichever party wins, that political party gets to choose who will be the new prime minister. Satoshi says most times the very second the political party wins and chooses someone, the rest of the government wants to change the guy in charge. So someone chosen for 4 years could get kicked out half-way or several months into his term. Definitely not very good for world relations.

If you ask me, I think they have too many political parties in Japan, which causes a lot problems, kind of like when there are too many chefs in the kitchen? But since I can't vote here, I guess I can't grumble too much about it other than I wish they would do all of their elections in one swoop and stop using their loud speakers to campaign (especially during my nap time!)

Have a great week.

reisei pasta

I hate to be so whiney and grumble about the heat and humidity so much especially since other areas in Europe have it way worse, but the heat and humidity was pretty bad today. It was so bad that we have the a/c on, but it is still warm inside (31C/87F). And when I changed my clothes, it felt like when you put something on straight out of the dryer, only problem is we have no dryer.

Satoshi was off today, and I had a bead class, so I had to figure out what we could eat for lunch since we didn't have time to eat out. I recently found a new recipe for reisei pasta, so I wanted to try it out. Reisei means cool dish, so reisei pasta is cool pasta. I've made a version and also have bought reisei pasta in the past and posted about it here and here.

This recipe is really fast and delicious, if you have the ingredients, I hope you will try it.

Reisei pasta serves 2
2 portions cappelini or any type of pasta you have
1/2 can of tuna
2 tomatoes, diced
1 tablespoon capers
2 tablespoons pine nuts
6 leaves basil, torn
4 tablespoon EVOO
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
salt
pepper

Put the tuna, tomato, capers, basil into a bowl and add a pinch of salt. Mix well and chill.
Cook pasta about 30 seconds longer than what the package says.
When the pasta is ready, put into an ice bath.
Drain the pasta well and add the tuna mixture. Add the EVOO, balsamic vinegar and nuts.
Salt and pepper to taste.
Enjoy!

NOTES: I used whole wheat fusilli and spaghetti, added diced onions and 1 tablespoon of pumpkin seeds and pine nuts. I also had some Italian parsley leftover, so I tore that up and added it in too. Instead of 4 tablespoons of EVOO, I only used 2. This pasta went nicely with 3-bean salad.