Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Whole wheat pasta with garbanzo veggie sauce

We are in a good space right now, coming out of a very busy period.  As you might expect between that and the spring weather, we are on a little health kick.  Our goal is to eliminate hidden sugar from our savory foods, and switch to whole grains wherever we can.  To that end, I found whole wheat pasta for $1.00/lb in the bulk section at Winco.  For dinner on Saturday, I chopped a red bell pepper, an onion, half a bunch of Italian kale, and a double handful of criminis in the food processor.  While they were saute'-ing with a little salt and cumin, I took a small can of garbanzos, covered them with chicken broth, and heated them up.  When the beans were hot, I pureed them until smooth with the immersion blender.  Then I tossed in a leftover hard boiled egg and about a quarter cup of plain yogurt.  I mixed the veggies into the garbanzo sauce and served over the pasta with parmesan cheese, chopped cilantro, and black pepper to taste at the table.  It was wonderful.  Plus, Samara loved the whole wheat pasta.  Patrick and I found it gave us a completely satisfied feeling in about half the portion size of normal pasta.  Later, we both agreed it kept us feeling full for longer, too.  Yay!

2 comments:

  1. We just had some quinoa and brown rice pasta tonight. It was pretty good. A little gummy, but I think that may have been due to the way it was cooked. I would be interested in comparing the protein content of something like quinoa pasta vs. wheat pasta. I'm always looking to increase protein content, and sometimes our pasta with veggies thrown on top meals are the ones where we struggle the most to add protein.

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  2. Yeah, last time I tried brown rice pasta I was pretty disappointed, and I just can't do quinoa. Cost gets to be an issue for us, too. For more protein in this recipe, I'd just toss in some more hard boiled eggs, or half a block of silken tofu. Once it's blended into the garbanzos and chicken broth you won't even know it's there.

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