Pasta with red sauce

 

As already wrote here, pasta is my ever favourite food to eat. Its something I cook when I am bored or when I am feeling excited or when I have time to cook or when I am too busy – just about anytime.

I used to buy the canned red sauce by Barilla and make the pasta before, but after bumping into a ton of recipes on the net for it, I decided to make my own. Now, there is nothing new in my recipe, but I just tweak around the ingredients, the quantity of the herbs to suit our palate and cut through some long routes :) . The result is always a good pasta, but something I can never replicate, because of the runtime alterations I do to the recipes.

I am sure I am not going to follow the same recipe the next time I make pasta, but this is the basic framework with which I am going to work around :). The changes I do are generally with the herbs, the
This recipe has more vegetables than is generally found in a regular pasta, and serves two for dinner.

Ingredients & Procedure:

For the sauce:
2 medium sized onions, chopped
4 large tomatoes, chopped
2 green chillies, diced
6 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tbsps olive oil
Salt to taste
1 tsp each of Oregano and basil

In a pan, heat the oil on medium flame and put in the chillies and crushed garlic. After 2 mins, put the onions in the oil and roast till the onions turn to a pale pink color. Add the herbs to this. Now add the tomatoes to this and let these cook in the oil. After about 5 mins, when the tomatoes are cooked, add the salt, take the pan off the stove and let this mixture cool. Pour in a mixer and blend to a thick red paste.

For the pasta:
2 cups whole-wheat pasta(fusilli, penne or spaghetti), cooked al-dente
1/2 cup each chopped vegetables (green, red and yellow capsicums, zucchinis, cauliflower florets)
1 medium-sized onion, chopped into long pieces
1 cup washed and chopped spinach leaves
2 tbsps olive oil
1 tbsp each Italian herbs (I generally use oregano, thyme, basil, sage)
1 tbsp basil pesto
Salt to taste
2 cups red sauce(made from the recipe given above)

For garnishing:
Cheese grated or diced. (I generally use the Britannia Masala Mania cheese cubes or Cheddar slices)

Heat the oil in a thick bottomed pan and add the onions to this. Add the herbs and basil pesto and let these roast in the oil. Put the capsicums in the pan now, and roast them for 4-5 mins. Now add the other vegetables like cauliflower florets, spinach and zucchinis and cook for another 4-5 mins. Now add the red sauce to this mixture, and let it cook till the sauce boils. Add the salt to taste in this mixture. Add the cooked pasta to this and mix this well, but careful to not crush the veggies.
Garnish with the cheese and serve warm.