I’ll admit it.
I TOTALLY misread the title – and so, the intent – of this recipe.
I THOUGHT this recipe was gonna be for a cool (not to say, chilled) summer spaghetti salad. What it actually WAS, was a recipe for warm spaghetti with a sauce that you don’t need to cook (the hot, freshly drained spaghetti is supposed to warm the sauce as you toss it).
Well, shoot.
I had my mouth all set for a cold spaghetti salad, and, by da Google, I was gonna HAVE a cold spaghetti salad!
Still, the original recipe, coming to me from Roxanne DeRosa via food52.com, provided me a fine starting point for my goal of a cold, mayonnaise-free, pasta side dish for FoodFest 2011.
INGREDIENTS:
•1 (28 oz) can diced tomatoes – I used one of those really nice cans I scored at the last European Imports Sale
•A good handful of fresh parsley and basil
•5 or 6 garlic cloves
•1/6 cup olive oil
•One box thin spaghetti (I used whole wheat this time)
•Crushed red pepper
Mince the herbs with the garlic in the food processor – a couple of quick pulses should do it – then stream in the olive oil and pulse to mix.
Pour the can of tomatoes into a bowl and stir in the herb and garlic mixture and set aside.
Cook the spaghetti as directed in well-salted water, then drain and rinse.
Toss the spaghetti with the tomatoes and herbs, cover, and pop into the fridge 
overnight. Much the same as my favorite mayonnaise-based pasta salad, this will give the spaghetti time to soak up some of the sauce liquid and flavors.
Check for flavor in the morning and adjust as you will. Since we were going to be slouching about a lot of cool purveyors of tasty tidbits later in the day, I opted to see what I could find on our trek. The olive bar at Mariano’s did NOT disappoint – I added some marinated peppers and veggies and stuff and tossed them into the pasta as I was putting things on the table for dinner.
Nice. And a bit unexpected.
I LIKE that in a pasta salad.