Spicy Roasted Vegetable Pasta

During my recent visit to Philadelphia and West Caldwell I ate the following foods: penne vodka, cheese pizza, spinach pizza, mushroom pizza from Sbarro’s, bagels, disco fries, and cheese enchiladas from Jose Tejas, a restaurant known for their endless free chips and Grand Canyon sized soda cups. Upon my grateful return to DC I figured it was time to eat something healthy. But how?! The answer: roast a bunch of vegetables, make them spicy, and pair them with pasta. You can leave it like that, but adding feta will make you forget that pizza exists. Not really, not even a little bit, but it tastes really good.  Also, my mom would love this recipe. Mom, make this and go easy on the red pepper flakes!!

Besides eating a ton during my trip, I traded in my point and shoot for my parents’ fancy DSLR (digital…self loading rifle?). This was very kind of them, but I just barely know how it works and have to stand on a crate to take pictures. Although it requires that I look like a fool, the pasta pictures turned out extra sexy. You should probably read this post when you’re alone.

Ingredients:

• Your favorite pasta
• Peppers
• Zucchini
• Grape tomatoes
• Garlic
• The juice of one lemon
• Red pepper flakes
• Olive oil
• Feta cheese

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

Start cooking whatever pasta you want. As you all know thin spaghetti is my preference, but a farfalle would also work well if you’re not into lanky noodles.

These are the vegetables I landed on, in part because of their beautiful colors. Since tomatoes take less time to cook, they need to be put into the oven later.

Chop up your vegetables, but don’t worry about them looking pretty, just keep them approximately the same size. The garlic can be left in large chunks, which goes against my intuition and fear of bad breath. I promise, the oven will transform it into something you will want to take huge bites out of.

Douse the peppers, zucchini, and garlic in oil, the juice of half a lemon, and lots of red pepper flakes. (Unless you’re my mom!!)

Spread the vegetables and garlic on a baking sheet and let it all cook for about 30 minutes.

Halve the tomatoes.

And add them to the baking sheet.

The complete set of vegetables should cook for another 20 minutes. When you take them out they will be wrinkly and vert soft, like a newly born baby. Also, sweet and very tasty, like a newly born baby.

Add your vegetables to the pasta, top with the remaining lemon juice and more olive oil. You can stop here if you want to play vegan…

But seriously, feta cheese is amazing with this. They are the perfect salty, creamy crumbles to make this meal worth eating for two weeks straight. Which I have been.

Enjoy!

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