Books & Pasta

Tuesday and Thursday nights are busy for us, but they're my nights to really cook up a meal. So for dinner tonight, I needed to make something homemade, healthy and quick! I was going to make stuffed artichokes but at the last minute realized we were out of parmesan cheese. Bummer. So we had "Easy Tuscan Pasta". We're using carrots and onion that were in our Bountiful Basket this week. This is one of our favorite quick dishes. For years I've been making this on the stovetop and it just occured to me to try the crokpot! Of course I realized this with only 45 minutes left to make dinner so crockpotting tonight wasn't an option. Definitely on the list to do for next week.

This recipe is so super easy and has a lot of nutrition snuck in. Most kids think they're just eating pasta and sauce. You can serve this with an extra green veggie onthe side like dark green salad or broccoli, but that's up to you.

You'll need:

Olive oil

3/4 cup shredded carrot

1/2 cup onion

1 (28 oz) Garlic & Onion pasta sauce (or whatever garlicy kind you prefer)

1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

1 (19 oz) can white beans - drain & rinse

1 box of penne pasta

~In a large skillet, heat oil over medium heat.

~Add carots & onion, sautee 5 minutes

~Stir in pasta sauce & crushed red pepper

~Heat to boil, then reduce and simmer 5 minutes.

~Add beans & simmer with lid on.

Meawhile, somwhere along here, you need to cook your pasta.

Pour sauce over warm pasta and serve!

This night, we didn't have enough penne, so we used thin spaghetti. And Gluten free pasta for my daughter. It was all delicious!

By the way, did you know how amazingly awesome Quinoa is?

You can read about it here or any site! The nutritional value and awesomeness of Quinoa is undeniable.

Now usually we have soccer and boxing tonight. But shhhhhhh.... we're skipping both (which we absolutely don't do!) to go to a Library Book Extravaganza! Really it's called "Family Library Night", but I think the former sounds way more fun! The fact that the whole family can go was the deciding factor for me. Yeah we can go to the local library, and we do, but this event is at our son's school. Going to big bro's school is sooo much cooler than the library down the street.

I won't be posting pix of the event. There were lots of little kids around and I'm sure their parents wouldn't appreciate thier faces plastered on some random blog. So you'll just have to imagine how much fun it was =)

If you try the recipe, let me know how it goes!