Caprese Pasta

This is an easy, quick dinner that's perfect for August's tomatoes.  If you're in a real hurry there's no need to cut or chiffonade anything, just tear and toss - the heat will get everything to mix a bit, and you can always squish with a spatula.  I made this with fresh linguine - the Wegman's house brand - but it can be made with any pasta type or shape.  My kid likes long noodles, so I tend to use those, but I think this would be great with penne or similar short pasta.  If I was feeling adventurous, I would make my own pasta and serve with that, but the refrigerator case is a great substitute.  Balsamic would be nice here, however, I wasn't thrilled with the brown visual, so I used lemon juice as the acid.  This is a one dish weeknight meal or a nice pasta course for a longer meal (reduce serving size).  A nice green salad would complement this well.  My husband thought I should serve it with steak.  I'm not sure why, except he likes steak.

Ingredients:
3 servings pasta of your choice, cooked.  Here, I used a 13 ounce package of fresh linguine - part of it was reserved for plain buttered noodles, so about 9-10 ounces were used here
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 cloves of very fresh garlic, cut in half
1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes, cut in half
1 large bunch basil, stems removed, chiffonaded (this just means cutting finely into ribbons)
8 ounces fresh mozzarella balls, cut in half (or not)
Juice of one half lemon
Salt and pepper to taste

Method:
Cook pasta according to package directions.  Aim for al dente.
Place 2 tablespoons of olive oil in large saucepan or frying pan (not cast iron) over medium low heat.
Add garlic and toss to coat with oil.
Cook garlic over medium low heat until it becomes soft.
Increase heat to medium.
Toss in tomato halves and basil.  Stir.  Cook about 2 minutes until heated through and tomatoes are very soft.  Basil should still be bright green.
Toss in mozzarella balls and lemon.  Cook another 30 seconds to 1 minute, until the mozzarella starts to just ooze.
Taste.
Add salt and pepper to taste.  This will need a bit of salt.
Remove from heat.
Warm serving bowl - either in the microwave or by pouring in boiling water and pouring out.
Add pasta to serving bowl. 
Pour over tomato mixture.  Toss.
Serve immediately.