What a thrill.  This Pasta with Sun-Dried Tomatoes from Ina Garten’s Barefoot Contessa Family Style cookbook definitely shook things up in my kitchen.  I love a recipe that makes you say “Hmm, I never would have thought of using _____ that way.”

The thing that I found to be surprising is the use of capers blended into the pasta dressing.  I’ve added whole capers to dishes before, but have never seen or thought to process them in with other ingredients.  What fun.  The dressing is made by adding sun-dried tomatoes and capers to a vinaigrette mixture and processing it to make a very flavorful sauce for pasta, tomatoes, cheese, olives and basil.

I was also thrilled to find that this recipe is one that lends itself well to substitutions made out of certain necessities (e.g., forgetting your grocery list).  I used some short pasta from my pantry, re-constituted dry-packed sun-dried tomatoes, and substituted feta cheese for the mozzarella.  I adore fresh mozzarella, and will use it the next time I make this, but the feta cheese was delicious, too.

Thanks to Delta Whiskey and the Barefoot Bloggers, I discovered a new way to use yummy capers – a trick I will be sure to use in other recipes.  To make this pasta yourself, just click on Food Network for the recipe.