Josh's Pasta Recipe

Josh: Hey everyone. Josh here. I'm here with the first of those "mini recipe posts" you all have been hearing so much about. I'm going to share my delicious pasta recipe. It's the first recipe that is of my own creation, so I'm kind of proud of it, dispite it's simplicity. It also is pretty healthy, because I use fresh veggies, a light sauce, and whole wheat pasta. Anyway, here's the recipie. It feeds a family of four with a little bit of leftovers, so you can mess with the measurements however you'd like to fit the portion size you need.

Ingredients:

1 Box of Whole Wheat Pasta (I use Penne)
1 Zuccini Squash (Quartered or halved, depending on preference)
About 1 cup of diced Mushrooms
1 to 2 cloves of garlic (Again, depending on preference), minced.
1/2 of a large yellow onion (chopped)
1 Jar Store-Bought Light Basil Tomato sauce
Orreagano
6-10 Meatballs (cut into 8ths, or whatever size you would like)
Salt and Pepper to taste

I like to first do all the prep work and seperate every ingredient into seperate bowls. First I wash and cut the Squash. I like to slice the squash and then stack the slices, so I can easilly quarter about 7 at a time. It's a big time saver. Careful with the sharp objects, though.

I then cut the mushrooms, onion, and garlic. For the meatballs, you can use any type, and it will taste just as good, I'm sure. You can use lean turkey meatballs to make the dish even healthier.

Next, I put the jar of sauce in a large pot and let it warm to a very low simmer on the stove. Before I add the ingredients to the sauce, I first sautee the onions, garlic, and squash in a little bit of olive oil until they are tender. When they're ready, they can be thrown right into the sauce. Then I add the mushrooms. The meatballs can go in as well, if you're using pre-cooked meatballs from a store. Otherwise you obviously have to cook the meatballs first.

While the ingredients are being added, I start to boil a pot of water for the pasta. Once it starts to boil, I add the pasta and cook until tender. Then it's only a matter of draining the pasta, and serving. You can mix the sauce and the pasta together, or serve them seperately. Leftovers can be stored in the fridge, and taste just as good microwaved as they did fresh, in my opinion.

Add a little parmesan cheese on top, and you've got a delicious pasta with a nice veggie crunch to it. Let me know what you think! I hope you enjoy it!