Recipe: Pantry Pasta Primavera

I should begin this recipe with a few caveats. 

1.) All of the ingredients for this recipe do not, in fact, originate in the pantry. You will have to open your refrigerator and freezer, as well. [If you're keeping your frozen broccoli in your pantry though, you probably have bigger problems than the title of this recipe.]

2.) This is by no means a fancy, blow your mind recipe. This is a recipe for those nights when you're not inspired in the kitchen, did a bad job grocery shopping and meal planning, and want something healthy and pretty tasty.

Now that we've cleared the air, how about that recipe?!

This recipe is inspired by a dinner that Torsten made last week -- Giada's Pasta Primavera. If you have all of the ingredients for her recipe, *by all means* make that instead. It is wonderful and gets 5 stars on FoodNetwork.com, which is unheard of. Giada is a goddess and I will not pretend that this recipe is half of hers. BUT! I can almost guarantee you have the ingredients necessary to make this recipe lying around.

I got home from campus last night around 8pm. I had attended a Campus Dining Forum with Aramark last night (repping the Nutrition department!) and an hour of talking about what kind of food I would like to see on campus left me Hungry with a capital H. This recipe was ready in 20 minutes and hit the spot!

Pantry Pasta Primavera

Serves: 1

Ingredients: 

1 large carrot, peeled

Handful of grape tomatoes

2/3 cup broccoli (I used frozen broccoli that I defrosted in the microwave - desperate times)

Fresh thyme

1 clove of garlic

2 glugs of basil olive oil

2/3 cup whole wheat rotini

Salt & Pepper

Directions:

1.) Preheat the over to 400 degrees

2.) Cut the carrots into long chunks, halve the tomatoes, and mince the garlic.

3.) Put the carrots, broccoli, tomatoes, fresh thyme, a glug of olive oil and salt and pepper on a baking sheet. Toss. Bake for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the minced garlic with 3 minutes left.

4.) Cook the pasta according to package directions. 

5.) Toss the pasta, vegetables an additional glug of olive oil and a dash of S&P.

6.) Serve! (bonus points for topping with freshly grated parmesan)

Note: the best part about this recipe is its flexibility. Any roasted vegetables would be great here. Butternut squash, onion, asparagus, squash, mushrooms, eggplant, etc. Additionally, any fresh or dried herbs can be substituted for the thyme (basil would be great!) and a plain olive oil would work just fine. Of course, I won't be offended if you happen to use penne or rigatoni instead of rotini. 

Hope you enjoy!