15 minutes Vegetable Pasta

Today's lunch was this super delicious vegetable pasta which took me 15 minutes from start to finish. 

Cook was on leave today and I was secretly glad - I must admit eating chapatis and curry everyday is not fun. We are consciously trying to eat healthy at home these days and eating out is restricted to weekends. That does not stop us from indulging at home right? You see, when I make rules I am simultaneously thinking of ways to bypass them.

So pasta it was...

In an effort to make it as healthy as possible (keeping with the theme of healthy eating) I rummaged through the refrigerator and anything that was deemed pasta worthy was pulled out.

This is a pretty cool pasta recipe specially for weekdays when we generally have lesser time on hand. For all the meat lovers, feel free to add chicken to the recipe if you have some pre-cooked chicken leftovers.

Ingredients

2 cups pasta (any shape, I used penne)

1 tomato chopped

1/2 cup cherry tomatoes/yellow pear tomatoes (omit if you don't have any)

1/2 green bell pepper roughly sliced

1/2 red bell pepper roughly sliced 

4-5 baby corns sliced

2 cloves of garlic finely chopped

1/2 cup tomato paste

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp dried oregano 

Black pepper powder to taste

Salt taste

1 tbs olive oil

PS: I did not add any cheese to the pasta. But hey, you go ahead and add whatever and however much of cheese you like

How to

First, boil a deep pan of salted water and cook the pasta according to package instructions. Don't forget to reserve a cup of the pasta water before draining.

While the pasta cooks, in a skillet heat olive oil and saute the chopped garlic for around 30 seconds.

Toss in the tomatoes and cook for 2-3 minutes till they are soft and form a sort of sauce.

Add the bell peppers, baby corn and tomato paste and cook for another 4-5 minutes covered.

Add the pasta water to the vegetables if it goes too dry to make a thick sauce. 

Season with salt, pepper, oregano and garlic powder. Remember, the pasta water was salted, so factor that in when seasoning the sauce with salt.

Finally, toss in the cooked pasta and mix well together with the sauce.

Serve immediately.