inspired

The other night I needed an idea. I was in the mood to do pasta for dinner. It's just easy and quick...and requires no baking or early planning like the crock pot. But I also felt like I needed to use more of the vegetables that are in my fridge. So I took a couple of ideas from a couple different places and made this sauce.

Vegetable Pasta Sauce

I'm not going to really write this out as a recipe since it was more an idea that can be adapted to whatever you have on hand. I used all vegetables from our farm share, the onions, peppers and tomatoes were frozen from last year, too.

I added these in the order listed. I cooked the onions and peppers on high to cook off a lot of the liquid, then I turned the heat to medium high until after the tomatoes were soft.

2 c chopped onions
1 c sliced bell pepper
broccoli, 2 medium crowns florets went in whole, and the stems were chopped first
2 c chopped carrots
2 large kohlrabi, shredded
2 1/2 large zucchini (about 6 c shredded)
9 medium tomatoes
6 cloves mashed garlic
salt and pepper to taste
2 tsp Italian seasoning

I let the onions and peppers cook away the liquid, then added a couple Tablespoons of oil to the pan with the broccoli, carrots and kohlrabi. That cooked for about 3-4 minutes then I added the zucchini. Another 3-4 minutes then I added the whole tomatoes (which I partially defrosted in the microwave). I let that cook for 10 minutes then I used my hand blender to puree it all. In went the seasonings, and the sauce was ready for a pound of pasta.

This was a chunkier sauce, not necessarily a tomato sauce. The leftovers were good too, and then I could really taste the broccoli in the sauce. It was a great way to have pasta and a veggie heavy sauce. High in vitamins and fiber, too.