Quick and Easy Dinner

Hubby, being Italian, is a huge fan of pasta.  Although he keeps claiming to be on a health kick, he keeps asking for pasta dinners.  Luckily, I am also a fan of pasta and don't mind the carb-y splurge every once in a while (okay, at least once a week).  In order to feel a little better about our carbohydrate overload, I decided to make pasta with lots of veggies.

My mom is a fan of veggies, and her go-to veggie dish is ratatouille, which is a French vegetable stew.  In my mom's version, she uses tomatoes, onions, yellow squash, and zucchini.  To make it, you essentially saute these vegetables together until cooked.  My mom doesn't even put oil in the dish.  Instead she puts the tomatoes in first, and their juices keep the other vegetables from sticking.  I made up a batch of ratatouille with two fairly large tomatoes, one medium onion, two yellow squash, and two zucchinis (and seasonings of course... salt, pepper, and chili powder).  Then I mixed in cooked pasta (penne in our case) and added a little store bought tomato sauce to give a more saucy consistency.  It was delicious, quick, and easy.

Here is my ratatouille ready to be mixed with the pasta and a little tomato sauce.