Quinoa pasta with cracked green olives, Kalamata olives, arugula, tomatoes and Parmesan Photo Susie Iventosch

The Friends of the Wagner Ranch Nature Center's Olive Festival and Olive Recipe Contest is just around the corner. This is the fifth year of the event, but it will be the inaugural recipe contest, so I want to encourage all of you wonderful cooks to get your recipes ready for the event. The Olive Festival will take place on Sunday, Oct. 12, from 1 to 4 p.m. and the dishes are due to the judging panel by 1 p.m. Judging will be conducted and winners announced at 2:30 p.m. during the festival, and prizes will be awarded! Be sure to bring copies of your recipes to hand out at the event.
In anticipation of the Olive Festival, I wanted to create a new olive recipe, especially since we love olives in almost anything! This is a quick and easy pasta dish, made with cracked green olives and Kalamata olives, along with arugula and cherry tomatoes. I used quinoa pasta, because we have a lot of readers out there who are interested in gluten-free, but any rotelli or fusilli pasta you like would be wonderful with it.
Enjoy and good luck with the recipe contest! I look forward to trying the winning recipes for a future column.
For more information, please visit http://www.fwrna.org.

(Serves two as a main dish, or four as a side dish)
INGREDIENTS
Quinoa rotelli (by Ancient Harvest) 8 oz. package
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 clove garlic
1/3 cup minced parsley
2 cups fresh arugula leaves
16 cherry tomatoes, halved or quartered
16 cracked green olives, pitted and halved or quartered
16 Kalamata olives, pitted and halved or quartered
1/2 fresh lemon
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS
Prepare olives, tomatoes, parsley and Parmesan ahead of time. When you're ready to eat, cook pasta according to directions. We like it slightly al dente. Toss cooked, drained pasta with olive oil and pressed garlic. Then toss in remaining vegetables (arugula, parsley, tomatoes and both kinds of olives), and squeeze lemon juice over all. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Garnish with Parmesan and serve with crusty French or Italian bread. Simple and delicious!

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