Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Veggie-Rama

So on July 28 I posted a few grill recipes that I found via Yahoo! and last night I made one that they featured called...

The Chopped Summer Salad

The use of the word salad in the title is a little misleading, although I am sure you could throw the veggies on top of the salad. The article didn't feature a specific recipe, more of a general idea, so I will break it down a little with how I made it.

Ingredients:
1 small eggplant
1 zuchinni
1 small bunch of brocolli
2 cloves chopped garlic
2 slices red onion
1 C. sliced mushrooms
2 tbsp. evoo
2 tbsp. balsamic vinegar
2 lemons
1 cup whole wheat pasta
capers, salt and pepper to taste

Steps:
Since I used a grill pan I was able to pre-chop the veggies, however if you are using a real grill you may want to keep them whole and rough chop them at the end.

Rough chop all veggies and plce in a ziploc bag with the evoo, balsamic vinegar, garlic and juice from one of the lemons. I added two spoonfuls of capers because I love them so much, but you can leave that to personal preference. Let this sit in the fridge for about 15-20 minutes.

Remove the veggies from the fridge and spread out on a grill pan at medium heat. In the meantime, bring a pot of water to boil for the pasta.

(These are the veggies in the grill pan before they shrunk down a little)

Keep the veggies on the grill pan while the water boils and while you cook the pasta. Feel free to reduce the heat if the veggies look like they are getting a little too well done.

Once the pasta is done, drain it and mix in a large bowl with all the veggies. Add capers, salt and pepper, squeeze some fresh lemon juice, toss and serve!

Below is how mine came out last night
Tips:
This was really tasty. The lemon at the end is a must! The acidity really compliments the fresh taste of the veggies.

I used whole wheat shells, but I would definitely recommend using a longer thin noodle like spaghetti for this dish.

In terms of weight watchers points*, for the whole dish it depends on how much pasta you use, but you figure the veggies are almost negligible, so 3 points or so for the pasta and 2 for the evoo (which you could probably eliminate if you really wanted), and let's add one more just to be safe - so let's say 6 points for this dish...YUM!

This would also taste great with a nice glass of white wine!

1 comment:

BJ said...

Yummy veggies. I've got to try this! Thanks, Jill.