Vegetable Linguine Recipe

Hi frens, 

  How are you guys doing......

So, I was feeling bored and didn’t have any inclination to cook tonight. Isn’t that typical J Anyways, but I wanted to eat something home cooked too. I just took a walk to get some fresh air hoping it would give me the energy to cook. 

I had amazing walk and site seeing at the same time. Well, if you live in NYC, you could get the best for both world; what say, New Yorkers :) ?

Came back and had a glass of juice to keep up the energetic feeling from my walk and guess what Ratatouille was running on one of the TV channels. Perfect! Isn’t it?  I left it on just to keep my cooking spirits high!

Now, here I am in my kitchen and the dilemma is what I should cook. I had few vegetables in fridge and whole wheat linguini. So, I decided to cook an Indian (since am an Indian J ; No brainer) based vegetable with linguini version for my dinner. Idea was to get both vegetables and fiber in one shot. Please find the step by step version of my recipe.

 

Ingredients:

Oil: Extra virgin Olive Oil: ½ Tbsp.

Linguini: Barilla whole grain Linguini ( I used half of this box)

Garam Masala/Spice:

• ·        1 inch cinnamon stick (Nutritional fact: One of the best sources for antioxidants)
• ·        Bay leaf (Nutritional fact: Very good source of many vitamins)
• ·        1 Star Aniseed (Nutritional fact: Contains good amounts of anti-oxidant vitamins such as vitamin-C and vitamin-A.)
• ·        1 tsp. Fennel seeds (Nutritional facts: These are rich source of dietary fiber, hence good for digestion.)
• ·        2-4 cloves of garlic – diced (Fun facts: Garlic is considered to have antibiotic activity)
• ·        ½ tsp. minced/grated ginger (Fun facts: Ginger could be used as natural food preservative and could also serve to treat cold)
• ·        1 small green chili (deseeded- we can’t handle the seeded chili…it’s too hot for me and my family) – cut in small pieces.  (Nutritional value: They are good sources for vitamins but moderation is vital when consuming these small power punches. That is true for anything. Hence “balanced diet” is a critical thing.)

Vegetables:

• ·        1 small tomatoes ( I used Roma tomatoes) – diced (Nutritional value: very good source of Dietary Fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin K, Potassium and Manganese.)
• ·        1 small onion – cut length wise (Nutritional value: Onions are very low in calories (just 40 calories per 100 g) and fats; however, rich in soluble dietary fiber.)
• ·        1 bell pepper – cut length wise (Nutritional value: Bell pepper has adequate levels of essential minerals. Some of main minerals in it are iron, copper, zinc, potassium, manganese, magnesium, and selenium.)
• ·        1 carrot –diced (Nutritional value: They are exceptionally rich source of carotenes and vitamin-A.)
• ·        Handful of spinach leaves – cut into small pieces (Nutritional value: They are considered to be best source of iron, richest among the green vegetables.)

Salt, pepper and parmesan cheese to taste

Note: I am not a nutritionist; I just like to know what I am consuming. Neither this information represents a complete list of nutritional value for respective vegetable; it’s just a snap shot. I got this information from various different sources. So, if you find any incorrect info. Please educate us with the correct information. I would really appreciate it.

 

Method:

1.  Boil water with a tsp. of olive oil (or u could use any oil/clarified butter/butter you want).
2. Put linguini (I break linguini in half, it becomes much convenient to mix at the later stages of this dish) in  boiling water. Let it cook for 5-7 mins. Drain the water and put it aside.
3.  Cut vegetables (you could cut the vegetables in any shapes you like, these are just my suggestions).

   4. In a wok, heat the oil; put all the garam masala/spices. Sauté it for few seconds.

   5. Put onions, sauté it for a minute

   6. Add all the vegetables except bell peppers. Add salt, pepper and parmesan cheese to your taste (go low on cheese; just a suggestion). Give it a good mix and let it cook for 3-5 mins.

7.    After 3-5 mins, the sautéed vegetable would become little bit soft and would look like this. 

     8.  It’s time to add green peppers. Again give it good mix and leave it for 3-5 mins. 

9.      After 5 mins or so; all the vegetables would be well cooked and look something like this

10.      Yeah! Time to add our cooked and drained linguine. 

11.      Give it good mix and let it cook for 7-10 mins. Once ready the dish would look something like this. Sprinkle parmesan cheese and its ready to be served. 

I had a blast sharing this moment of cooking with you guys and I hope you did too. Have a healthy and home cooked meal guys. More later… 

Best~ Devi