Summer Spaghetti

For my first recipe post, I just had to share this deliciously rustic spaghetti I made this week! Chock full of vegetables, you won't even miss the meat -- and your stomach will thank you! The seasonal ingredients in this dish are the wonderful summer cherry tomatoes, eggplant, and zucchini -- all to make a delightful sauce Romans themselves would get jealous of.

Servings: Two (feel free to double up the ingredient amounts for lunch later in the week!)

What you'll need:

• 1 cup Marinara Sauce (I like Trader Joe's brand, $1.99 a bottle)
• 2 oz spaghetti pasta (about 1/4 of a package; I used TJ's brown rice brand, but any will work!)
• Salt/Pepper
• A little Olive Oil or Cooking Spray
• Fresh Garlic chopped into really small pieces (don't fret: garlic powder works too)
• 1 Zucchini
• 1 small eggplant
• 1 handful fresh spinach (if you have only frozen (still just as nutritious,) be sure to microwave/drain first!)
• 2 handfuls fresh cherry tomatoes (about 15 small tomatoes)
• OPTIONAL: 1 grater (can get a small one for about $10 at Target!)
• OPTIONAL: fresh basil and mozzarella cheese if you have it (I used a stick of light string cheese!)

The Step-by-Step:

1. Heat a pot of water on the stove until it boils. Add a pinch of salt and stir it in until it dissolves. Add the pasta and cook approximately for 6 minutes (or whatever it says on the side of the package; some brands differ.) Once the time is up, drain the pasta and set aside.
2. Chop the zucchini, tomatoes, and the eggplant into small chunk-like pieces. (optional step: chop only half of the zucchini, and grate the other half into the sauce later -- see picture!)
3. In a smaller pot, heat some olive oil (read: one spoonful) or spray with some cooking spray.
4. Season the oil (or spray) with some garlic powder, or fresh garlic chopped into really small pieces (in culinary speak, "to mince")
5. After about 30 seconds of heating the garlic (to the point where you can smell it wafting,) pour in the marinara sauce. Stir well.
6. Add in the chopped vegetables (optional: grate in the zucchini!)
7. Stir in the spinach and basil -- Wait 5 minutes until the spinach is totally wilted and in the sauce.
8. Season the sauce with a pinch of salt and a pinch of pepper. Stir. Taste. Keep adding a pinch at a time, stirring and tasting until it suits you (don't go overboard!)
9. Take one cup of the spaghetti noodles and spoon half of the veggie sauce mixture on top.
10. Optional -- grate mozzarella on top of sauce. Lay a fresh basil leaf on top of the cheese.
11. Enjoy!

xoxo n
Recipe and picures by N. Neilson

Did you know?

Zucchini is a nutrient-rich vegetable that peaks in summer. It also is mostly WATER -- making it perfect to sneak into sauces completely undetected. I grated it into this recipe (see pic above) when I made it, and it tasted like plain tomato sauce to me! But my stomach was happy!