Month 2 day 2: Penne with Chickpeas, Feta, and Tomatoes

Normally on Thursdays I'm rushing to finish cooking and eat before 7:45, when I have to leave to work in the tutoring room. Today I started cooking at 6:30, same as most Thursdays, but when I finished at 6:50 I was confused as to how I'm normally so rushed for time. The limiting step of this dinner was actually just boiling water and cooking pasta. This is a good weeknight recipe.

Today I made:
Penne with Chickpeas, Feta, and Tomatoes, Cooking Light March 2010

That picture doesn't look very appetizing, but it was. The penne look red because we buy the pasta that counts as a serving of vegetables, whatever that means. We feel like it's healthy.

Chop up some onion and garlic, add in some chopped red pepper and chickpeas (I had pre-chopped the pepper over the weekend. Thanks Past Holly!), and add in some halved cherry tomatoes. Each of these steps only needs a couple minutes in between, which is actually basically enough to chop that next ingredient.
Unfortunately the basil we had was old and no longer tasty, so we had to leave out the fresh basil. I think that would've been really good in it.
The lemon zest was really nice, and the feta just melted into the reserved pasta liquid and juice from the tomatoes as they cooked to make a sort of creamy sauce. I thought this was pretty good. G thought we've had better recipes, citing the fettuccine we made last month. But I'm much more likely to have chickpeas around than hazelnuts, so I'm keeping this recipe too.