Greek Pasta Salad with Sun Dried Tomato Vinaigrette

The week after my birthday and the world continues its indifferent spinning, which is both humbling and reassuring. The houses need selling. The children need feeding. The bakery needs Mama at 4 AM and Mama is there at 4 AM because Voula Papadopoulos has never been late for anything in her life and she is not going to start now, at seventy-nine, when the baklava is depending on her.

I had a breakthrough week in real estate — five showings turned into two offers, both accepted, both closing next month. My pipeline is the strongest it has been since I started. I am building toward something, though I am not sure what yet — a team, maybe, or a brand, or just the quiet satisfaction of being the best agent in my corner of Tampa. Whatever it is, it involves olive oil at open houses and honest opinions about roofs, and it is working.

Alexander asked me about the bakery this week. Not about the food — about the business. How much does Mama make. How does she handle inventory. What is her profit margin. My son is seventeen and asking about profit margins. I told him Mama does not think about profit margins. Mama thinks about phyllo. The profit follows the phyllo. He said that is not how business works. I said it is exactly how the bakery works. Quality first. Money follows. He looked skeptical. He will learn. Or he will make spreadsheets about it, which is the same thing.

Sophia is preparing for a science fair project about water quality in Tampa Bay. She is testing pH levels and dissolved oxygen and using words I had to look up. She spread her samples across the kitchen table and it looked like a laboratory had invaded a Greek kitchen, which is a collision of worlds I did not expect in my household but which I welcome because every collision produces something new, and new is how families grow.

I made keftedes tonight — the Greek meatballs with mint and oregano that are the one dish everyone in this family agrees on. Not Mama's keftedes — mine. My recipe has evolved over twenty years of making them: more mint than Mama uses, less bread, a quick pan-fry followed by a finish in the oven that keeps them juicy inside and crispy outside. Alexander ate eight. Sophia ate five. I ate four. We sat at the table and the conversation was easy and the meatballs were perfect and I thought: this is what forty-four feels like. Not old. Not young. Seasoned. Like a good keftede — everything in the right proportion, held together by heat and time and the stubborn refusal to fall apart.

The meatballs disappeared faster than I expected — seventeen-year-old boys and profit margins apparently require a great deal of fuel — and I was glad I had made this Greek pasta salad to round out the table. It is the kind of dish that asks nothing of you after a long week: the sun-dried tomato vinaigrette does all the heavy lifting, the feta brings the salt, and the whole thing tastes like someone who knows what they are doing made it, even when you threw it together between a showing and a science fair conversation about dissolved oxygen. Greek food has always been that way for me — generous, unfussy, and stubbornly good.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 12 minutes | Total Time: 27 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

12 oz rotini or penne pasta
1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes in oil, drained and roughly chopped (reserve 2 tablespoons oil)
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
1 cup cucumber, quartered and sliced
1/2 cup Kalamata olives, pitted and halved
1/2 cup red onion, thinly sliced
1/2 cup roasted red peppers, sliced
4 oz crumbled feta cheese
1/4 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped

Instructions

Cook the pasta. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook pasta according to package directions until al dente. Drain, rinse under cold water to stop cooking, and transfer to a large mixing bowl.
Make the vinaigrette. In a small bowl or jar, whisk together the olive oil, reserved sun-dried tomato oil, red wine vinegar, oregano, garlic powder, salt, and pepper until well combined. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed.
Combine the salad. Add the sun-dried tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, olives, red onion, and roasted red peppers to the bowl with the pasta. Pour the vinaigrette over the top and toss until everything is evenly coated.
Add the finishing touches. Fold in the crumbled feta and fresh parsley, being careful not to overmix so the feta stays in distinct pieces. Taste for salt and pepper.
Chill or serve. Serve immediately at room temperature, or refrigerate for at least 30 minutes to let the flavors deepen. Toss once more before serving and add an extra drizzle of olive oil if the pasta has absorbed the dressing.

Nutrition (per serving)

Greek Pasta Salad with Sun Dried Tomato Vinaigrette — Because the Greek Table Always Has Room for One More