Simple, Healthy, and Fantastic: Roasted Vegetable Pasta

 

As you probably know, we make a lot of different dishes as a result of running this blog. Sometimes we run out of inspiration from the cookbooks we have on hand. One solution is to buy new cookbooks (just purchased Ad Hoc at Home, so get ready to see some delicious stuff from there!), but the other, far cheaper solution, is to scour the inter webs for greatness.

One blog we keep coming back to is The Slow Roasted Italian. Donna provides daily updates of really delicious looking dishes, and she posts the photos of the process, so it makes it really easy to understand how to actually make the dish.

She has a ton of great recipes, so if you are ever in the need of some inspiration yourself it's worth perusing her recipe file. We've bookmarked a few for our future endeavors as well, including her recent southwestern meatballs, her light and healthy chicken with tomatoes and olives, the baked cavatappi with roasted red peppers, and of course her Italian style mac and cheese. But this week we made something really healthy yet tremendously delicious, her Roasted Vegetable Penne Pasta.

It's so simple, yet bursting with flavor, and since it's so healthy you can eat a lot of it without the need to feel guilty at all. Pop the veggies in, roast them, then toss them with pasta. It doesn't get any easier than that!

Making the Dish
Roasted Vegetable Penne Pasta adapted from The Slow Roasted Italian

What You'll Need
1/3 lb penne pasta
1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
2 zucchini, cubed
2 eggplant, cubed
3 tbsp olive oil
1/4 cup pecorino romano
2 tbsp freshly ground black pepper
2 tsp salt

Preheat your oven to 375. When the zucchini and eggplant are cubed, place them in a bowl and toss them with 2 tablespoons of the olive oil, the salt, and a tbsp of the black pepper. Toss everything together until it is nicely coated.

Lay out the zucchini, eggplant, and tomato on a baking sheet. Drizzle the remaining olive oil over the tomatoes, and add them to the baking sheet as well. Make sure that they are all in one even layer across the baking sheet, and then pop it in the oven.

Roast the veggies for about 15 - 20 minutes until they are really nice and soft. While they're roasting, cook the pasta in salted water until al dente. When it's completed, drain it and add it to a bowl.

Remove the veggies from the oven and add them to the bowl with the pasta. Add in the pecorino romano, and toss together until the pecorino has slightly melted and the veggies have been incorporated throughout the pasta. Some of the veggies will break apart, especially the tomatoes, providing a subtle coating for the pasta. That's what makes the dish really work.






Serve garnished with some extra pecorino if you desire, and enjoy!

Got a great blog we should know about? Tell us about them in the comments!

One year ago: Shrimp and Spinach Alfredo with Penne

A Healthy, Easy Superbowl Snack: Fajita-Spiced Roasted Chickpeas

 

Superbowl Sunday is coming up here in the USA and we're planning on hosting a raucous party in our 700  sq ft apartment. The most important part of a superbowl party is beer and food, but it's easy to go overboard and eat a lot of unhealthy stuff. To counter this, last week we presented you with a no-mayo spinach artichoke dip that will blow your mind. Today, we bring you a healthy, tasty, zesty snack that's incredibly easy to make.

These chickpeas are lightly seasoned with a blend of spices that will give it a slightly tex-mex-esque flavor. Then, they're roasted for 30 - 45 minutes at high heat until they get nice and crispy. The result is a tasty little snack that's great to munch on, is just as flavorful as a bag of potato chips, and much, much healthier.

Making the Snack
What You'll Need

Two cans of chickpeas, rinsed, with excess skins peeled off
1 tbsp olive oil

For the spice blend
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp coriander
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp chile powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder

After rinsing the chickpeas, let then rest on paper towel, dabbing off excess water, and let air dry for about 15 minutes. While resting, preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Mix the spices together in a small bowl. Then, place the chickpeas in a mixing bowl, drizzle on the olive oil, and throw in the spices. Mix together until the spices are evenly distributed.

Lay the chickpeas down into a baking dish in one layer. Place the baking dish in the oven. Roast the chickpeas for 20 minutes. Then, using a spoon, turn the chickpeas over. Cook for another 20 or so minutes, until the chickpeas are very dry but not burnt.








Remove the chickpeas from the baking dish after they've completed cooking, and hand out to your friends to enjoy!

The finished fajita roasted chickpeas

The Result
These little snack bites are crispy, crunchy, very flavorful, and super healthy. They are incredibly easy to make, and will be a party favorite. Serve them up this Superbowl Sunday and delight your guests!

One Year Ago: Genoa Cheese Bread (also happens to be great for a party!)

Easy, Cheesy, and... Healthy? Brussel Sprouts with Pecorino and Thyme

 

Our Bucatini with Chicken Ragu, while tasty, does take a bit of time and effort to pull off, we admit. To satisfy your need for something simpler, we bring you this delicious dish that can be a fantastic side, or even a main course! Brussel sprouts, with pecorino and thyme.

The brussel sprouts are blanched, then sautéed in thyme infused olive oil, and finished by melting in cubes of pecorino. For those of you who like brussel sprouts - this is a great way to have them. For those of you who don't like brussel sprouts - this is a great way to try them for the first time. The gooey pecorino and the earthy thyme are perfect compliments to the subtly sweet brussel sprouts.

All of the ingredients, with the brussel sprouts cut in half.

We made these as a side for delivery pizza - trying to keep it healthy while we watched some football. It was great!

Making the Dish

Blanching the Brussel Sprouts

Prep time: 10 min

Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 25 min

What you'll need: 
1 lb brussel sprouts
2 oz pecorino, cut into small cubes
2 tbsp fresh chopped thyme
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper




Instructions:

Pecorino, cut into cubes

Start by blanching the brussel sprouts in lightly salted water. When the water is boiling, drop them in for about three minutes. Then, drain, rinse under cold water, and set aside until they are cool enough to handle. When they're cool, cut the brussel sprouts in half and remove any of the tough stems that remain.

In a non-stick pan, add in the olive oil over medium heat, and when it's hot, add in the thyme. Stir around and let the flavor of the thyme infuse into the olive oil.

Thyme, simmering in olive oil

After around a minute, before the thyme has started to brown, toss in the brussel sprouts and toss to coat with the thyme and olive oil.

Sautéing the brussel sprouts. 

Cook the brussel sprouts over medium heat for about 10 - 15 minutes, until they are nicely browned and soft throughout.












Add the pecorino cubes and toss together, cooking for a minute more, until the pecorino just starts to melt around the sides. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Remove to a bowl, and serve nice and hot.

Tossing the brussel sprouts together with the pecorino, letting it melt and get gooey

The Results

As we said at the outset, this is a quick and easy way to eat your vegetables. The pecorino gives it a nice salty, cheesy, gooey goodness, and the thyme imparts a delicious earthy flavor onto the brussel sprouts.

Now, we're a bit split on the verdict of brussel sprouts in general, with YiRan not being as much of a fan as Bryan. But, YiRan did like this dish, regardless. Do you have any great recipes that use brussel sprouts that we should try? Any that could make Yiran a fan? Let us know in the comments!

One Year Ago: Pasta with Chicken Sauce (Fuzi con Sugo di Pollo)

Ziti with Arugula and Cherry Tomatoes: A Delicious End of Summer Weeknight Dinner

Well after a few days of fall it got kind of hot again, so it seems like we're not quite to bolognese-every-day-time yet. Fortunately, there are still tons and tons of delicious, end-of-summer, peak-of-ripeness tomatoes that we can all take advantage of.

With such delicious ingredients, you don't need to do too much to them to have a fantastic meal, and this dish exemplifies that notion. It's merely 3 main ingredients, but since the cherry tomatoes are perfectly ripe now, you can make this and feel like a terrific cook, even though you didn't have to do that much!

Delicious summer cherry tomatoes

Making the Dish

Slice the cherry tomatoes in half.

Get started by slicing the cherry tomatoes in half and slicing the garlic. Then, since the sauce comes together so quickly, start cooking your pasta. We used ziti here, but really any tubular or short pasta would be fine - penne, or rigatoni would be a great substitution.

Simmering garlic and crushed red pepper in olive oil

While the pasta is cooking, in a non-stick pan, sauté the garlic in olive oil with a touch of crushed red pepper until the garlic starts to brown nicely. Once the garlic is finished, add the tomatoes to the pan and cook for a few minutes until some of the juices release and they begin to just soften.

Adding the cherry tomatoes to the garlic with some kosher salt

This will make them nice and sweet and create a nice pan sauce.

When you get to the last three to five minutes of cooking on the pasta, add the arugula straight to the boiling water with the pasta.

Adding the arugula to the boiling pasta water

Once the pasta has finished cooking, reserve some of the pasta water and drain the arugula and pasta. Add them to the pan with the cherry tomatoes and toss until the pasta is coated with the pan sauce. Add more of the pasta water if necessary to loosen the sauce up a bit. Grind up some pepper over the pasta to season.

Tossing the tomatoes with the arugula and pasta and seasoning with freshly ground pepper

Serve garnished with freshly grated cheese.

The Result
We were extremely satisfied with this dish, and its simplicity really let the ingredients come through in their purest form. The combination of the slight bitterness from the arugula and the sweetness of the tomatoes worked together wonderfully.

If you're looking for a really easy weeknight meal that takes advantage of the bounty of delicious end of summer tomatoes, this is your dish!

Click through for the full ingredients list

Orecchiette with Broccoli, Olives, and Ricotta Salata - Healthy and Delicious

The other day we were browsing through an issue of La Cucina Italiana trying to figure out something new to try. We were, as always, in the mood for pasta with a red sauce, but we had broccoli on hand and wanted to make something healthy.

I am getting bored with these veggies... bring on the meat!

This lovely dish jumped right out at us, as we already had ricotta salata on hand from our Pasta alla Norma. The original recipe called for a wide variety of olives, but our local supermarket could only provide one variety - black Cerignola. So we swapped out the green Cerignolas and Gaeta olives called for in the original recipe with copious amounts of black Cerignolas, and it worked out just right.

Making the Dish

Finely chopped ingredients

This is one of those dishes that requires a lot of chopping, but after that initial prep is complete, very little work to finish. So start off by getting all of your ingredients prepared. Dice up the celery stalk, carrot, shallot, and all the olives. Open up a can of whole peeled tomatoes (or if you have them, simply use fresh plum tomatoes), drain the can, and roughly chop the tomato flesh into cubes. Lastly, chop up the head of broccoli into nice small florets.

Simmering together the carrots, celery, shallots, and olives

Once this is done, heat up some olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Throw in your olives, celery, carrot, and shallot and cook briefly. After about two minutes, add in the chopped tomatoes and a cup of water, bring the mix to a boil, and then reduce to a simmer.

Adding the roughly chopped tomatoes

Cook the olive and tomato mix until most of the liquid has evaporated. This gives the sauce a chance to absorb all the wonderful flavor from the celery and carrot and really come together.

All the liquid evaporated after 30 minutes of cooking

After about 15 minutes of simmering, you can start on the pasta. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and dump in your orecchiette and cook until 1 minute shy of the package directions. When you're 5 minutes away from finishing the pasta, drop the broccoli florets into the boiling water. That's right - instead of using a separate pot to cook these guys, you'll do it all in one.

Broccoli and orecchiette cooking together - one pot, two jobs

La Cucina advised us to put the broccoli in at the beginning, but this lead to overcooking and somewhat mushy broccoli. If you work it out so they'll spend only 5 minutes in the water, they'll turn out great.

Methinks you should have realized on your own that cooking broccoli for 10 minutes was a bad idea, regardless of what the magazine said...

Drain the pasta and the broccoli and reserve a half cup of the cooking liquid. Toss the orecchiette into the olive and tomato mixture, and add in the cooking liquid as needed to loosen it up into more of a sauce.

Tossing together the orecchiette and broccoli with the olive tomato mixture.

Scoop out the pasta and mixture into serving bowls, and cover with a generous grating of ricotta salata cheese.

Pasta and vegetables, ready to eat.

The Result
The ricotta salata, although not added to the very end, plays a very important role in this dish. It contrasts beautifully with the olives which shine through the pasta sauce. The carrot and celery impart a sweetness to the sauce, and the broccoli gives it a bit of heft so it feels like you're eating a ragu.

All in all, this was a great find. Just be sure not to overcook the brocoli!

Who doesn't love olives? Tell us your favorite way to use olives in the comments so we can try it in our kitchen!

Click through for the full ingredients list!