3. Day of December - Festive Pasta (Weihnachtspasta)

Today marks the third day of December and for today´s Advent Calendar post, I chose a less traditional recipe. As I was shopping for Christmas decorations, I came across some Christmassy fun shaped pasta that I knew the kids would enjoy at this time of year.

Christmas pasta with little Christmas trees, Santa Claus and shooting stars. The colors in the pasta are all natural, meaning that the manufacturer used tomato juice and spinach to color the different shapes of pasta.

I chose a very simple sauce here and kept the Christmas color theme – red, green and white with a very simple „sauce“ of oven-roasted cherry tomatoes (for the red), rocket and basil (for the green) and a good shaving of a hard goat cheese (for the white).

I like to roast the tomatoes on the vine with herbs from the garden (think rosemary and thyme), sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, garlic and a dusting of confectioners´ sugar. The rocket is not boiled, just added to the cooking water for a few seconds, that´s all. Served with some fresh bread, this made a nice quick Christmassy lunch for the kids.

It ia nice to try out different shapes of pasta every once in a while. Gives those simple dishes a special and festive touch. Make sure you buy your pasta from a reliable source and make sure the pasta is make with all natural ingredients. Then let your imagination be your guide...a quick and easy pasta dinner or lunch loaded with veggies might just be exactly what you and your family needs on a busy December day.

I really liked how the pasta held ist shape even after cooking – if you make sure to cook your pasta al dente, fun shape noodles should keep their fun shape even after having spent a few mminutes in fiercely boiling water.

Hope you enjoyed this rather light-hearted post – tomorrow it is back to some serious baking, so make sure to come back for a visit tomorrow when we will open our fourth special surprise in my virtual Advent Calendar!