I love pasta. Pasta and potatoes are my favorite carbs. I love that you can do so much with noodles. My husband I try not to eat a ton of carbs in general. For dinner we do a lot of salads. Or we grill meat and veggies and don’t do a carb as a side. IF we do carbs often time it’s quinoa which is a supergrain packed with protein but we tend to shy away from complex carbs. There are some nights though when you just want them. The other night we were trying to figure out what to do for dinner. We were leaving for a week and needed to pack, do laundry, get stuff done and wanted something easy. Unfortunately I am so picky that take out is a pain for us. We live downtown Detroit so Chipolte (which is our take out go to) is a good 20 minute drive. It’s one thing if I am passing by one on my way home from yoga but to run get it turns into an hour ordeal and defeats the purpose of take out. Chase suggested I make pasta because it can be quick and he knows I love loading everything with vegetables.
I love the summertime vegetables that are in season. One thing I learned from traveling abroad is they cook with what is in season. If there isn’t asparagus in November they don’t cook with it. Everything is very seasonal. Summertime means an abundance of tomatoes and bell peppers. I wanted to make a quick sauce and load my pasta with veggies. I also didn’t feel like cooking meat. Like I have said before I can go a week without eating meat. However, my husband complains that he is not getting enough protein (to which I showed him the math and assured him he was getting plenty!) but thought about how I could add beans to the pasta to give him a little extra. I also have started to make pasta dishes where the pasta isn’t the bulk of what is in the meal. I like to load my dinners with lots of vegetables or whatever else I am cooking and not have the pasta be the star but be in the background with everything else.
Cannellini beans have become a favorite of mine. When we were in Florence I had some of the best Tuscan white beans. I tend to put them in a lot of soups. I have had them in pasta before which was always interesting to me. At my grandparent’s 50th anniversary party they had it at a local Italian restaurant. Where I grew up in Northern Michigan there are a lot of Italian immigrants. I know they are mainly from the Calabria region of Italy and these restaurants have some of the best garlic bread I have ever had. It’s cut super thick, it has a ton of garlic butter on it and it’s pretty much a staple when I head back home. At the party though I had a pasta that was so “weird” to me. It was noodles with a ton of cracked black pepper, garlic, shaved cabbage and white beans. Odd combonations but it was sooooo good. I remember trying to make it at home and it didn’t turn out right. And my house smelled like cabbage for a few days which was not pleasant. The beans in the pasta were great though. So I decided I would add some in the pasta I was making and hope it turned out better than the one time I cooked.
I love roasting vegetables in the oven. I often roast tomatoes in the oven and make tomato soup with it. I decided to make a roasted tomato-red pepper sauce for the pasta. Roasting veggies in the oven can make your life so easy. You throw them in the oven and essentially forget about them until you have to stir them. For the sauce I combined 2.5 lbs of heirloom tomatoes (my absolute favorite in the summer time!), bell peppers, red onions, whole cloves of garlic, white wine, tons of Italian seasoning and red pepper flakes with olive oil. You roast them for almost an hour, put in a pot and puree and your sauce is eseentially done. It’s that easy. Some people slave over a stove to make pasta sauce. I don’t mind doing that but that night I definitely didn’t feel like it.
The day we were getting married my husband went on a food tour in Sorrento (oh yeah, we got married in Italy…..) while my girlfriends and I were getting ready and drinking champagne. On his food tour he learned about pasta and the regions to get the “best pasta”. We brought some back with us that we will use on special occasions but we were in Whole Foods and realized they have a great Organic brand from the Puglia region of Italy which according to the food tour guide in Sorrento is “THE” region for pasta. Rigatoni is one of my favorite shapes of pasta. It reminds me of my grandma. This brand has huge rigatonis so we bought that. I also think because the pasta noodles are so big you don’t need a lot of it. Instead of cooking a dish where 90% of it consists of noodles I almost treat my noodles like a side and let the veggies be the main part of the dish.
When I start to think of how I am going to cook my dinner I go to the grocery store and wing it. I see what looks good that day and what isn’t crazy expensive. This is where my husband and I differ. If I give him a list he buys whatever I put on it. But he never looks at the prices. If brocolini is $5.99 a package and broccoli is $1.99 for a head I am going to go for the broccoli. He would just grab whatever I told him too. It’s not that I am cheap. I just try to be more reasonable because the amount the 2 of us spend on groceries a month is the equivalent to what some families of four spend. I definitely will not be blogging about how to eat on a budget…. That day at the store though broccoli looked good. I wanted more greens so I figured I would throw in zucchini and spinach as well. Spinach is one of those greens you can use in a ton of dishes. If you don’t “like” spinach I would recommend you try a few meals with it. Chop it up small and once it warms up it wilts down and you honestly can’t taste it. I could never eat a plate of spinach as a side dish either but in dishes like this you can’t taste it but reap all the nutritional value this vegetable has to offer.
I cooked the pasta until it was a little shy of al dente. I don’t think I have said this enough but TRY YOUR FOOD! People that wait until it gets to their plate to try it might be disappointed. You need to learn how to adjust seasonings. With certain spices like salt and spicy food start small and add more. With pasta don’t set the timer and trust the noodles are cooked. Check it. Taste to see if it’s cooked to your preference, in this case though you do want it cooked less because it will cook more in the sauce. So if you like your pasta completely cooked cook it to a few minutes shy of that. I am into al dente pasta so I took mine out when it was still a little crunchy in the middle. I wouldn’t know it was that way though unless I took a bite of it! A few minutes before my pasta was “done” I added in the broccoli florets to cook a few minutes in the pasta water. I then drained the pot and added the pasta/broccoli mixture back into it with the zucchini and spinach. I ladled a ton of sauce into it and let it cook for a few minutes more so the zucchini could cook up a little. I then added the cannellini beans to the mix since they are already cooked you just need to warm them up a little bit. At this point your meal can be done if you are a vegan. However, if you are like me and LOVE cheese grate some fresh ground parmesan into the pasta pot and stir together. The cheese will help the pasta thicken up a bit.
If you did want meat in your pasta a grilled chicken breast would go nicely on top of this pasta. Remember cooking isn’t about following a recipe strictly (I said cooking not BAKING! Baking is definitely more of a science). If the veggies I put in this pasta don’t look good at the store or you don’t like them modify. Asparagus would be great in here and you could cook the asparagus with the pasta like you did the broccoli. If you want to pay $5.99 for broccolini use that! I feel like sometimes people read a recipe and get turned off because there is one ingredient they don’t like. I assure you as a picky eater, the ONE item will not change the dish to the point you shouldn’t make it. Play with your food people!
veggies and beans with roasted tomato bell pepper sauce with a “side” of rigatoni
Cook Time: 1.5 hours Prep Time: 20 minutes
Makes 3 entrée sized portions
1 large red onion chopped into large chunks
3 bell peppers of any color chopped into chunks (try to avoid green pepper though as they are not as sweet as orange, red or yellow)
2.5-3 lbs of fresh tomatoes roughly chopped (I used 4 big heirlooms, you could use romas, Campari, or any combonation) also if fresh tomatoes do not look great or you are making this in the winter 2 32 oz. cans of whole tomatoes will work well here
1/8 c. olive oil
½ c. white wine
10 cloves of whole garlic
3 TBS of Italian seasoning
½ tsp red pepper flakes
½ cup fresh basil either chopped or torn into smaller pieces
1 large zucchini diced (or 2 small)
4 cups of fresh baby spinach roughly chopped
1 head of broccoli stems removed cut into florets
1 box or can of cannellini beans drained (you can substitute Great Northern beans if you cannot find cannellini)
Parmesan cheese for topping
Preheat oven to 450
In a large baking dish combine onion, tomatoes, bell pepper, garlic cloves, olive oil, Italian seasoning, red pepper flakes and red wine. Mix together to coat the veggies with seasoning and olive oil. Roast in the oven for 45 mins stirring occasionally. When the veggies are done transfer to a large pot and use an immersion blender to puree. (if you do not have an immersion blender you may use a food processor or regular blender. With a regular blender be very careful pureeing the hot vegetables). Once vegetables are all pureed taste the sauce. If necessary add in more salt, pepper or Italian seasonings. Add in fresh basil and stir to combine.
Place a large pot of water on the stove and bring to a boil. Add in pasta and cook about 2 minutes less than package directions. (the pasta will continue to cook in the sauce afterwards). When pasta is half way done cooking add broccoli to pasta water. Drain.
Place the pasta and broccoli back in the pasta pot onto the stove with the heat on low. Add in chopped spinach and zucchini and top with sauce. Stir well to combine. Let the spinach start to wilt down and then add in the beans. Add in more sauce if desired.
