Wednesday’s are my farmer’s market days, which usually means that by Tuesday I have either nothing left in the house or some random fruits and veggies that need to be eaten. In an effort to use up what I had on hand before buying more stuff, I did a “clean out the fridge” night and made this pasta dish that turned out pretty good.

Here’s what I had: a pint of cherry/pear tomatoes from my grandma’s and friend’s garden, some herbs from the same friend’s garden, and a jar of marinara sauce about 2/3 full. The obvious direction was pasta…

In my largest, high-sided skillet, I sauteed one clove of minced garlic in some olive oil. I added my cherry/pear tomatoes and cooked them until they started to burst, about 7 minutes on medium-low heat. Add some herbs– I used about a TB of fresh parsley and a TB of fresh basil– and some salt. Then add the marinara sauce. Ta da, as my Emma likes to say! I served mine over some brown rice pasta. I like the brown rice pasta as much as I like regular wheat pasta, so it’s pretty much all I use now for pasta dishes. It’s gluten-free and I eat enough gluten that I could probably stand to eat a little less. Case in point: I have a loaf of wheat bread baking in my bread machine right now. It should be done in about 20 minutes, in fact.

For some extra protein, I threw in about a cup of cooked chickpeas. I cooked up a huge pot of them recently and had 2 quart jars stashed away in the freezer. It took about an extra millisecond to thaw some and throw them in, so I figured why not?! Maybe tomorrow I’ll take a photo of my farmer’s market goodies to share with you all.