Yum! Yum! Yum!: Vegetable Pasta in White Sauce

Jan 25, 2017

Vegetable Pasta in White Sauce

When ever I need to make an exotic menu for the weekend or make Friday supper special, I go with pasta dishes. Because you can make several variations with pasta, with chicken or shrimp or veggies, hubby likes to eat pasta with the combination of red wine ( to get to relax on Fridays), kids love those different shapes of pasta that I always experiment with. So Today I am determined to make red sauce veggie pasta and made all the preparation, then spoiled red sauce in the fridge gave me a big surprise :-0. So I had to make the White Sauce from the scratch and finished this pasta recipe. Although it took longer to make the pasta dish and ruined my Friday evening time, but i loved the fact that I have created new White Sauce recipe on my own and now big NO to store bought sauce. Did some one say 'Necessity is Mother of Invention'! :-) Here is the recipe, njoy!

Ingredients:
Pasta - 1 lb ( your favorite variety)
Butter - 1 Tbsp
Vegetables
Yellow Bell Pepper - 1
Carrot - 1
Mushrooms - 5
Zucchini - 1
Olive Oil - 3 Tbsp
Dry Basil - 1 Tbsp
Garlic - 5 Cloves ( chopped)
Salt - 1 tsp
Black Pepper - 1/2 tsp
Red Pepper Flakes - 1/4 tsp ( optional)
Parmesan Cheese - 1/4 cup ( grated) ( for Garnish)

White Sauce - 1 cup ( follow my recipe for White Sauce prep)

Preparation:

Boil Pasta according to package instructions. Drain in colander and run through cold water, so that pasta is separate from each other with out sticking. Transfer drained pasta to a wide plate and add 1 tbsp butter to it. ( no need to melt butter, as pasta is hot butter melts and gives nice shiny coat to pasta)
Wash all the veggies. Remove stems from mushrooms and chop into 4 chunks. Trim edges of Zucchini and cut into medium size cubes. Trim edges, peel carrot and chop into medium size pieces. Remove stem and deseed Bell Pepper and chop into medium cubes.

Method:

Heat wide non-stick pan and add Olive oil to it. Once the oil is slightly hot, add red pepper flakes, chopped garlic, dry basil and saute for 1 min.
Add chopped veggies to pan and saute them on high for 3 min, you notice veggies becoming slightly tender, now add salt and black pepper to veggies, saute for 1 more minute.
Now add cooked pasta to pan and mix with all the veggies. Saute for 1 min.
Add White Pasta Sauce to the pan and coat pasta and veggies with sauce by gently folding every thing in the pan.
Sprinkle 1/2 of grated Parmesan cheese on top in the pan and mix well.
Serve pasta into plates and sprinkle remaining Parmesan cheese on top evenly. enjoy creamy and yummy pasta while it is hot.

Notes:

Adding butter to the boiled pasta gives nice shining coat and look to your pasta.
Red Pepper flakes is optional, i like my pasta dishes with slight touch of spice, hence i add red chili flakes, if it is spicy for you you can skip.
Adding red chili flakes and garlic to oil in the beginning, makes the oil infused with spices and gives better flavor to your pasta dishes.
I like to add variety of veggies in dish to make it colorful, that's why i added rainbow color veggies. ( you can try other veggies like asparagus, green peas, red bell pepper, etc)
Make sure veggies are not overcooked in this dish, veggies need to be fresh and crunchy in pasta dishes with out loosing their bright color. So after adding veggies to pan don't go anywhere, be there and notice the tenderness and add pasta accordingly.