unloading the veggies night

Last night I looked in the fridge to decide what to make for dinner and I saw that we had tons and tons of veggies, but just a few of each one, so I decided to get creative and do a big mashup of everything with some pasta. I wanted a light non-tomato based sauce for a change so here's what I came up with...
Fresh veggies, light sauce and my new fave noodle, the bucatini. Tuesday Night Pasta Primavera

Bucatini are spaghetti-like strands of pasta that are thicker than spaghetti, with a thin, hole down the center. According to wiki: “Bucatini originated in central Italy, but became popular in Rome, especially in the classic dish, Bucatini alla Matriciana, which has a light, spicy sauce made of tomatoes, pancetta, red pepper flakes, and grated Pecorino cheese.” Totally going to have to order that in Rome and definitely going to attempt a version pretty soon.

How cool are these noodles? They’re so thick you can only swirl a couple at a time onto the fork, and they’re like glorious little straws. I love the texture – sturdy and tender at the same time. They were great with the light sauce and veggies. A thicker sauce probably wouldn’t do so well with this noodle – might get a little messy and you’ll run out of room on your fork.


Pasta Primavera a la LC
1 can chicken broth
½ cup (fat free) Half&Half
¼ cup half heavy cream/half skim milk*
You can do all heavy cream or all milk – gauge your consistency to health ratio ;)
1 tbl. olive oil
3 cloves minced garlic
½ onion sliced
1 red bell pepper sliced
primavera veggies – 1 medium zucchini, 1 medium squash, 2 broccoli florets, ½ lb asparagus, 10 ounce frozen package green peas thawed, ½ cup halved cherry tomatoes
½ bag loose spinach leaves
10 ounces Pasta of your choice – spaghetti, linguini, angel hair you name it
½ tsp red pepper flakes (optional)
¼ cup basil chiffonade
S&P


Bring 4 quarts water to boil in a large pot for cooking the pasta. I’m using the Bucatini.

Heat olive oil in large sauté pan over medium-high heat, add red peppers and onion and sauté till tender 6-8 minutes (if you like mushrooms, add them here with the onion). Add in garlic near the end and stir until fragrant, about a minute.


ooh tonight I used my new all clad French skillet! This is definitely going to be getting a lot of use in my kitchen.

Add the chicken broth and cream mixture (and red pepper flakes) and bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium and rapidly simmer until liquid is reduced by half, about 10 minutes. If you use milk, add a tablespoon of flour to thicken it up a bit. Reduce heat to med-low and cover to keep warm.


Add noodles to the boiling water and cook for 3-4 minutes. Throw in the zucchini, squash and asparagus for 2 minutes. Then throw in the broccoli for 1-2 minutes. You want to cook until all the veggies and pasta are al dente. Drain pasta and veggies and return then to the empty pasta pot.


Add spinach, peas and tomatoes to the sauce and stir until spinach begins to wilt.


Then combine the sauce with the pasta in whichever pot you like and think is big enough to get a good stir going and coat the pasta with the sauce. Stir in the basil and S&P to taste.


Grate some parm over it, butter some bread, and praise God because this is sooo good and healthy!



Side Note – my hubby likes meat with his meals (I may have mentioned this before) so before I started the sauce, I pan grilled a chicken breast cutlet and some scallops and set them aside. I added these to the sauce with the spinach, peas and tomato to warm through, and when I made his plate I made sure he got most of the meat, and I got some scallops. It’s the little things