Dinner tonight: A midsummer night's meal

Tomatoes, basil, mint, lemon...I might complain about the heat, but I'm definitely enjoying summer's bounty of vegetables and fruit. Last night, after a particularly long day with the tots (ahh, the adventures of bringing two seventeen-month-olds to Fort Greene Park), Evan walked in expecting me to say, "I'm not cooking tonight, what do you want to order?" (He actually walked into a post-bath scene of Jack running naked down the hall and Nellie screaming because, instead of letting her join her brother, I was trying to strap a diaper on her before she peed.) He was pleasantly surprised when I started whipping up an insanely easy dinner that left us both nom-om-om-ing at the table.

The salad: bufala mozzarella and mini red and golden tomatoes with olive oil, sea salt, and basil. Come on now. Thank you Bon Appetit, for the inspiration.

The pasta: linguine with pea and mint pesto. The always helpful Dinner a Love Story was responsible for this deliciousness, though next time I think I'd zap the peas in the microwave to get them really soft before giving them a whirl in the food processor (theirs looks much more green velvet than mine, and I can only guess it's because of softer peas).

The wine: a crisp gruner veltliner from the Wachau region in Austria. It's specifically from the Nikolaihof vineyards, where I visited during my quarter abroad in Vienna; I actually squealed when I discovered the new wine shop near us carried it.

Best part? Tons of leftovers for the tot dinner the next day. 

Except for the wine. That's mama's.