Roasted Vegetables Pasta

My relationship with baking is similar to meeting a good old friend after a long break. I have childhood memories of mom's baked goodies. She would bake buns, cookies and cakes. I still remember mom's lemon cake aroma gradually enveloping the whole house. We would just wait till the oven bell rings to grab and eat.

Few years later, I started baking and became an avid baker of eggless cakes. But when we started moving, we never wanted to incur additional expense to buy an oven. However here I got an inbuilt oven in the kitchen. Its only been 3 months since I started baking, but I already feel like I cannot cook without an oven.

Oven has helped me to transform all the deep fried cooking into roasting. We are used to deep frying vegetables and making a curry with it. Deep fried vegetables has an absolutely different tanginess. But for health reasons we have stopped deep frying. I have started to cook a lot with roasted vegetables, but using similar ingredients and the curries taste the same. Most importantly it is guilt free and oil free!

In addition to curries I'm also roasting vegetables to make pasta and salads. This recipe is a result of it. I made a sauce with olive oil, mustard sauce, jalapeno sauce and honey. Tossed the vegetables with sauce and roasted it.  The sauce slowly infuses mild  sweet and sour taste to roasted vegetables. Roasted vegetables and pasta are a match made in heaven. Yes I promise this meal is absolutely delicious. 

Print recipe here

Ingredients

Serves 3

To make the sauce for roasting vegetables

2 tbsp canola oil

2 tbsp Balsamic vinegar

2 tbsp honey (optional)

2 tbsp tobacco Jalapeno sauce (optional)

To make pasta sauce

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp chili flakes (optional, reduce the amount depending on spice tolerance)

2 cloves of garlic finely chopped

4 tbsp passata sauce

Salt to taste

1 of each red, green and yellow bell pepper, thinly sliced

1 medium zuchini, cut into 1cm thick cubes or thinly sliced

1 small eggplant, cut into 1 cm thick cubes
6-8 button mushrooms thinly sliced

100g Fusilli Pasta (or use preferred type)

Handful of grated Parmesan cheese and thinly sliced basil leaves

Handful of pine nuts

Method

Mix all the ingredients to make the sauce. (You can be creative and use different ingredients to make this sauce) Toss the sauce with all the vegetables till they are nicely coated. Pre-heat oven at 200 celsius. Use a baking tray, place parchment paper and spread the vegetables evenly. Dry roast for  15-20 minutes. (I usually use double sided heat for 15 minutes and grill mode with fan for last 5 minutes)

Separately in a wide non-stick pan, heat oil sauté garlic till aromatic, add chili flakes followed by pasta sauce. Close the lid for a quick boil. Turn off heat and set aside. Add salt to taste.

Boil water in a sauce pan, add salt, when water starts to boil add pasta cook al dente.

Drain water using a colander, add pasta to the pan, followed by roasted vegetables, toss them well.

Now it's ready to serve, But I did an additional step which took this meal to an another level of bliss.

I transferred the pasta into the baking tray, sprinkled thinly sliced basil leaves and cheese, roasted in oven at 200 celsius for 5 minutes. It looked absolutely stunning and tasted delicious. Just sprinkle handful of pine nuts and serve. Click link to see the after bake pasta photo I posted in Ami's Vegetarian facebook page.

I also invite you to take a virtual tour of Middle Eastern markets in Dubai. (click link to see more)