Recipe: Crunchy Veggie Pasta

The pastas I make at home are much lighter in the summer months. Its just too hot to relish white sauce or even a bolgnese or any other heavy tomato based sauce, especially at dinner time.

The pastas I make during summer are light enough to be served as a salad too. This is one of the recipes that I use.

Ingredients:

1 cup uncooked pasta (for this and other non sauce recipes, I prefer short or minute pastas or spaghetti)
2 cups vegetables - mushrooms and baby corn - chopped in half
1 lemon - juice extracted
your favorite fresh herbs (I used parsley today)
2-3 cloves garlic
salt to taste
fresh cracked black pepper or red chilli flakes to taste
a tsp of olive oil

Method:

In a pan, bring water to boil.
Add a little salt (to flavor) and oil (to prevent sticking)
When the water bubbles add te pasta and cook till done. (al dente or soft).
Drain the pasta and immediately run some cold water through it to prevent sticking.

Choose a pan large enough to hold the vegetables and the cooked pasta.

In a hot pan, add the olive oil.
When hot, add finely chopped garlic.
Add the halved mushrooms when the garlic begins to brown.
When the mushrooms start letting out their water, add the baby corn.
Cover and give it a quick steam (1 minute)
Add the salt, black pepper/chilli flakes and chopped herbs.
Toss quickly so the flavors are distributed evenly.

Add the drained pasta + lemon juice and toss again.
Cover and leave on flame for a minute or 2.
Serve Hot.

If you want to serve it as a salad, it can be served cold too.
The lemon juice is essential because I hardly use any olive oil in this recipe, so this adds moisture to the dish.
If you would like to turn this into a Non-Vegetarian dish, you can add boiled chicken strips or cold meat strips (total quantity of meat + vegetables should be 2 cups)

The picture above has Crunchy Veggie Pasta and Pan Fried Herbed Chicken.