Tonight I had a serious craving for carbs.Rather than pasta, I boiled up some whole grain udon noodles. I like the Eden brand, which you can find at many supermarkets these days. These wheat and brown rice noodles are a lot lighter than most whole wheat or whole grain Italian pasta both in texture and in flavor and are packed with protein (8 grams per serving!). They also seem to be kinder on the old digestive system than a lot of those whole grain pastas tend to be.
The first thing I did was toss a pint of sweet orange pear tomatoes with olive oil (just enough to coat), dried oregano, and S&P. I poured this mixture into a glass baking dish and roasted it at 400 degrees until the tomatoes burst (10-15 minutes). If pear tomatoes aren't readily available, you can replace them with some nice vine ripened red tomatoes. Just cut them in half and roast them cut side up.
While the tomatoes were roasting, I boiled my pasta and drained it when it was just al dente.
I also heated up 1/4 cup of olive oil and 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes on low heat. Once warm, I added five cloves of finely chopped garlic and cooked the mixture for a few minutes. The garlic should soften up and mellow out but NOT brown.
While this was happening, I grated about 2 oz of parmesan cheese.
The final step is to combine everything in your pasta pot: cooked noodles, roasted tomatoes and any juice that cooked out, the olive oil and garlic mixture, and the cheese. Mix everything together gently and cook until it's at the desired temperature. Sprinkle some more cheese over the top before serving.
You know I always need my greens, so I just steamed a bunch of broccoli to have on the side.
This was a yum meal and really satisfied my carb craving without making me feel like I had gone off the deep end nutrition-wise. Also, if you're a meat eater, you won't miss it a bit in this vegetarian meal. And if you do, just add more cheese. There are no problems that more cheese cannot solve!
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amen :)
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