Pantry pasta with marinated feta

My first rule of summer cooking: no oven usage allowed.

My second rule: only one burner can be turned on, and only for less than 20 minutes.


With that in mind, I bought some feta recently, hoping to make a watermelon and feta salad, which is possibly the perfect summer meal - no stove usage required.

But the feta I bought totally sucked.


No flavor at all. I didn't think that was possible with feta. (It was goat feta - is that why? I don't know what I was thinking when I bought it. Actually, I wasn't thinking - I had just walked into the new Fairway and was totally overwhelmed.)


In the hopes of improving it, I thought I would try to marinate it in some olive oil and spices - I've seen pre-packaged versions do this, and a Google search brought me to David Lebovitz's version.


I added dried basil and oregano, lemon zest, dried chili flakes, black pepper, then covered the whole thing with some olive oil. Stuck it in the fridge and waited about a day and... meh. The herbs definitely flavored the feta, but still, the feta was lacking that salty kick. If you start with mediocre feta, it is difficult to improve. Sigh.

I do loathe wasting food, so how to rescue this mess??


If you are a pantry hoarder like myself, you likely have things like canned tuna and sardines, anchovies, olives, capers, pickled peppers, jars of artichoke hearts and hearts of palm lying around - savory, tangy elements of antipasti that are perfect for this situation.


I put the feta together with what I had on hand in my fridge and pantry: olives, both kalamata and green, sun-dried tomatoes, red onion, grape tomatoes, sardines, and these awesome spicy pickled red peppers (which I've been hooked on ever since my cousins introduced me to them only a week ago).


I added some cooked pasta (about 20 min of cooking time), still warm, to this mix, along with some spinach (arugula is better) and tons of freshly squeezed lemon. I didn't add any more oil because there was plenty of residual oil from the sun-dried tomatoes, sardines and marinated feta. Also some salt and pepper to taste.


Gave everything a toss - the warm pasta just softened the spinach (that's why I prefer arugula, it wilts better).


A summer meal without breaking the rules! It turned out to be sort of a Greek pasta salad. The pasta gave it just enough heft while the lemon and all of the vegetables - pickled and not - provided the flavor. I think tuna could work well too, or maybe I'll go totally vegetarian and skip the fish. And I had plenty leftover to take to lunch the next day. I did have to eat the feta with something else like an olive or pickled red pepper in order for it to be palatable though. But I did it - I managed to eat every last bit of it.