Eat this: pasta salad with roasted tomatoes

I know, I know. You want nothing less than to turn on the oven right now, but bear with me – this is worth it.

Via Smitten Kitchen comes this recipe for a standard pasta salad that is elevated to oh-so-above-standard by the addition of roasted cherry tomatoes. Yes, you have to turn the oven on for an hour and a half. Crank the A/C and sweat a little.

The good news is this pasta salad serves eight as a side dish. I like pasta salads as entrees, and I like them to be full of “stuff”, so I’d increase the cheese, olives, and nuts by 50% (or even double them); do that and your oven suffering will probably make 5-6 main dishes. Heck, if your oven’s big enough, roast double the tomatoes and then you can be eating this all week (and you won’t regret it).

Here is the recipe.