Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Roasted Vegetable Pasta Sauce

This is a super healthy, fresh pasta sauce that will make your kitchen smell heavenly. I found it quite a while back on A Thousand Words, where Jen blogs about organization, decor, fashion, and her life in England. You'll love it.

Anyway, back to the recipe. You start with some fresh veggies:
Rinse them off good:
(My daughter Dee is my best kitchen helper)
Dice them, then stick them in a large (or two regular) roasting pan with some spices and olive oil:
Roast them in the oven for about an hour (this is the part where your kitchen smells divine):
Add some canned tomatoes, serve over pasta, and devour.
If you have picky eaters like mine, you can pulse some in the blender to make it smooth, like "regular" spaghetti sauce:
Which is also great for dipping bread sticks. I ate mine chunky (although I will make the chunks a little smaller next time):
(Delicious bread stick recipe to come.)

Here's the full recipe. Original recipe here.

Roasted Vegetable Pasta Sauce

1 eggplant
2-3 zucchinis
1 red onion
3 red bell peppers
fresh basil
garlic powder (to taste)
1-2 T olive oil
1 t balsamic vinegar
3-4 cans diced tomatoes

Preheat your oven to about 350°F. Dice the vegetables into small chunks, between half an inch and an inch in size, and put them in a large bowl. Sprinkle on chopped fresh (or dried) basil, ground garlic powder, olive oil, and vinegar. Place vegetables into roasting pan(s) so they aren't layered too deeply. Bake for 50 minutes, stirring once halfway through, or until soft but not too blackened (a little bit of singeing is ok).

Remove from the oven, add tomatoes, and stir. Return to oven for 10 minutes until warmed through. Serve over pasta or rice.

Note: This makes a LOT. I recommend feeding an army, or freezing some in batches (a great quick lunch later). Jen also recommends sometimes skipping the tomatoes, and just adding the roasted vegetables to cooked, cooled pasta with a drizzle of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and feta cheese for a wonderful summer salad. That sounds awesome to me, minus the feta, plus a different kind of cheese. I don't do feta.

2 comments:

Tiffany said...

Looks yummy, I would definitely go for the pureed version. I sure wish we lived closer so I could try your yummy food. It's making me hungry, and it's only 9:30 am.

TheMoncurs said...

Thanks for posting this! Aaron and I just decided to try much much healthier living for a few months. This is going on the menu.