Pasta with No-Cook Olive Sauce

I don’t know about you, but I LOVED the heat and humidity yesterday. I was pretty much sad to see it go away, along with the thunderstorms. After a winter from hell (I am pretty sure hell really is cold and snowy.), I want to sweat, to melt, to feel tired by the heat.

But I don’t necessarily want to cook. On our boating date last Saturday, my friend Julie brought lots of delicious snacks and bubbly. The spread included a delicious olive tapenade, which I thought would be perfect on some pasta.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the olive tapenade, and last night I finally decided to turn the thought into dinner.

Eat, Write, Retreat provided us with some fabulous, buttery Lindsay Olives as part of our swag bags.

For my tapenade, I used an entire can of green ripe olives and the whole container of the Italian seasoned black olives, both thoroughly drained. Yum.

While I boiled my Trader Joe’s spinach and chive pasta (using water boiled in the electric kettle, further avoiding heating up the house), I made the simplest sauce ever.

Olives, four cloves of garlic, a splash of red wine vinegar, and a splash of olive oil, plus some crushed red pepper and ground black pepper

Once the pasta was cooked I topped it with room temperature olive tapenade and crumbled goat cheese.

Tossed all together so that the goat cheese, tapenade, and pasta get all melty and gooey, I sweat this combination was better than many pricey restaurant meals I had. It was all about the flavor.

I realized when I was looking for the goat cheese that we currently have the following cheeses in the fridge:

shredded Mexican, shredded part-skim mozzarella, 2 kinds of blue cheese, goat cheese, Neufchatel cheese, and Kerrygold Dubliner

Who needs seven cheeses at once? I do!

What is your favorite cheese? What cheese do you have on hand at the moment?