Posted by kathryn in Vegetable recipes, Quick recipes and Main courses

I love cooking. Spending some time concentrated on beautiful ingredients and making a meal that both tastes good and is also healthy, is how I unwind. However, like most people, during the week I don’t want to faff around too much. If I can make something in 30 minutes and more importantly make minimal mess, then I’m happy. The ultimate mid-week meal for me, is one that contains all my food groups, including plenty of veg and most importantly, can be cooked in one saucepan .

For many people, pasta is their easy back-up meal. Cook some pasta, throw over a pre-made sauce and Bob’s your uncle. However, while I get the convenience of it, I’ve always found pre-made pasta sauces annoyingly over-priced and disappointingly bland. Also, if you’re simply pouring a pre-made sauce over cooked pasta, I hate to be a killjoy, but it’s not a very well balanced meal. It’s a meal that has too much starchy carbohydrate and nowhere near enough vegetables .

Hence the quickie pasta sauce challenge . . . is it possible to make a healthy, better balanced sauce, in the time it takes to cook the pasta and without getting too frenetic?

Well this is something I’ve been working on for a while and I’ve come up with a number of variations on a theme. In this one I’ve quickly roasted cherry tomatoes on a high heat and then tossed these with olive oil, herbs and lemon juice to make a sauce-y dressing, which is then tossed through cooked pasta. It includes enough vegies for your daily quota. Sprinkle over some pinenuts and ricotta cheese, for the protein part of the meal and you’ve got a well balanced and tasty dinner.

Follow the instructions in the order I’ve written them and it’s made in the time it takes to boil the water and cook the pasta.

Quickie Pasta&Sauce

Serves 2

• 1/2 punnet cherry tomatoes, washed
• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 100g green beans, cut into 2.5cm lengths
• 150g broccoli florets (8 – 9)
• 200g pasta (I used rigatoni)
• 1 tablespoon pine nuts
• 2 tablespoons fresh ricotta

• 2 shallots, thinly sliced
• juice of half a lemon
• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 1/3 bunch parsley (or English spinach), finely chopped
• 1 clove garlic, crushed

Switch the oven on to 220C.

Toss the cherry tomatoes in the olive oil and put on a baking tray.

Put the kettle on, to heat up water for the pasta and while waiting for this, prepare the vegies.

Put the tomatoes in the oven (for 8 – 10 minutes in total).

Once the water is boiled, pour into a large saucepan, put on a high heat and bring back to the boil. Add the pasta and cook for 5 minutes. Add the beans and broccoli to the pasta water and cook until the pasta is al dente.

While the pasta is cooking, mix all the dressing ingredients together in a bowl. Once the tomatoes have cooked, add these to the dressing and stir to combine, slightly mashing the tomatoes as you go.

Once the pasta and vegies are cooked, drain and then toss through the dressing. Serve immediately with the pine nuts and ricotta sprinkled over the top.

• Total kilojoules: 1,980kJ
• Protein: 16g
• Fat: 21g
• Saturated fat: 2g
• Carbohydrate: 10g
• Fibre: 9g
• Sodium: 50g
• Number of vegetable serves towards your daily total: 3
• Other nutrients: lycopene , iron, potassium, folate, niacin, thiamin, beta-carotene, calcium

26 September, 2006