You can use any type of pasta for this meal. I prefer spaghetti (long thin pasta) or penne (short fat tubes)

Cook the pasta according to the directions on the package and set aside.

Chop into medium sized chunky pieces 1 big brocolli, a small handful of french beans, 5-8 asparagus

Thinly slice 1 medium sized zucchini and 2 medium sized carrots

Chop up 1 packet of mushrooms, however you like, they taste great thinly sliced or as big chunks too. You can use whichever musrooms you want, button, portabello, oyster… in whatever combinations

Puree 7 big juicy tomatoes, and cut another 3 tomatoes into big chunky pieces. Optionally cut into thin strips 4 pieces of sun dried tomatoes.

Crush or very thinly slice 3-5 pods of garlic, use fresh green garlic if possible, also grate or crush a 1 inch piece of ginger

Separate out the leaves of a medium sized bunch of oregano, wash them well

Optionally grate some cheese to garnish.

In a heavy bottomed saucepan, heat up 5-8 tablespoons of olive oil (i prefer extra virgin) and 1/2 tablespoon of butter. Add the ginger and garlic and cook until it browns. Add the oregano leaves. Let them crackle and pop for a bit, and then add the chunks of tomato and cook for about 5 minutes. Add the sun dried tomatoes and cook another 4-5 minutes. Now add the tomato puree and cook completely, until the oil separates and you get that tantalizing aroma of tomatoes and oregano… yummmmy!! Add salt to taste. The sauce should have a thickish consistency.

In a saucepan, fry all the other veggies in olive oil, one by one. Don’t overcook. They should retain their colour, freshness and their crispiness. I do the carrots, french beans and broccoli together. the the mushrooms with the zucchini and finally the asparagus by itself.

To assemble, heat some olive oil in a pan and add the pasta to it and carefully toss the pasta so that the oil coats it. Don’t break the pasta. Add the pasta to the tomato sauce and carefully and thoroughly mix over low heat. Next add all the veggies. See to it that you don’t overwhelm the dish with too many veggies, nor be miserly about it, like they are in most restaurants. Optionally grate some cheese on top, use cheddar or parmesan. Chanting and/or singing bhajans while doing this give an unusually delicios flavour to the pasta

It’s ready to eat now with some lovely toasted and buttered multi grain bread.

Or you could go a step further and grate some more cheese and bake for 10 minutes or so on high heat (250 deg C) until the cheese melts. If you are going to bake, use mozzarella or a combination of  cheddar and mozzarella cheese as the topping. Also if you are going to bake, make the tomato sauce a little more watery, so that after baking everything is nice and moist.

Remember to serve piping hot!

Jai Gurudeva!

love

bawa

ps the photo doesn’t do it justice, but this is the only one i have

(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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Tags: Main course, Pasta

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 12th, 2009 at 10:30 am and is filed under Recipe. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.