Green Olive Red Noodles

I know, I have been MIA for way way too long. I'm sorry. You all really have no idea how anxious it makes me when I fall behind on posting. It feels like I'm letting you all down. I also like to believe I have loads of faithful followers.

My excuse? The end of summer, birthdays, my birthday, work and too much fun. It was all squeezed in last mintue. Then school came and at the exact same time, my computer decided to have a overheating problem. What a huge inconvinence for both my blogging and school, but mostly blogging. Can you say last semester senioritis?

Two weeks later, I'm back in business. In the process, I learned how computer dumb I am, when it was returned with a new harddrive. It only took me forever to reconfigure my computer. Thanks for taking out my harddrive, not. That isn't important though, there are way more important things to share with you all. Like this pasta being perfect for carbo loading before an epic open water race. That is what I was doing the other weekend, in Chicago.

Open water swimming, the best thing ever. Totally hooked on it or maybe hooked on the competition. I also totally dominated. Beinging totally honest, I wasn't in the best shape to swim a 2.5k, in wavy Lake Michigan. The waves were 2-3 feet, peaking at 4. Its nothing like an ocean, obviously, but don't laugh at my excitiment. The 4 practice swims in Lake Monana don't prepare a person for waves, only algae and gross fish and the occasional muskrat.

Besides all the awesomeness of the waves and algae free water, I placed 30th out of 321 (thats men and women). No big deal, top 10%. The 11th women, with a time of 40:06. Not bad, not bad at all for most of the training happening in the three weeks leading up to it.

 

Enough bragging and ramblings about swimming and onto the noodles. Our family loves making "red noodles" (recipe to come one day) and this is my version of it. I love olives and that is how this came to be. Feel free to add as much cayenne as you like and as many olives. This is just simple olive, tomato paste and carb goodness, in less than 20 minutes. The perfect fail safe or when you are in a rush or both.

xo
April

Ingredients:
1 pound cavatapi or bowtie noodles
1/4 cup olive oil
5 ounces tomato paste
1/3 cup chopped green olives with pimento
1/4 teaspoon granulated garlic
Cayenne pepper

Instructions:

1. Bring a pot of water to a boil and cook noodles according to package instructions.
2. In a medium pot, combine olive oil, tomato paste, olives, splash of olive juice, granulated garlic and cayenne pepper (to taste), over medium-low heat for 5 minutes.
3. Drain the noodles (don't worry about draining them perfectly, a little water won't hurt) and add them to the tomato and olive mixture, stirring to combine well.