Roasted Veggie Pasta Primavera

Now let me just be completely honest here and let you know that this recipe has a few strikes against it. It's not quick, because there's lots of vegetable chopping required. And with summer coming up it requires roasted vegetables, which means heating up the kitchen. I also can't guarantee that your kids will like it. Mine think it's so-so.

(Like I said, some serious vegetable chopping involved here. Beautiful, but time-consuming.)

However, even with the negatives I wanted to share this because I really, really love this dish. And I have such a fondness for it because I truly adore roasted vegetables. Roasting brings out the natural sweetness, and who doesn't love that? So if you have a little extra time and it's not too hot outside, give this a try!

Roasted Veggie Pasta Primavera

3 carrots, peeled and cut into thin strips

2 medium zucchini or 1 large zucchini, cut into thin strips

2 yellow squash, cut into thin strips

1 onion, thinly sliced

1 yellow bell pepper, cut into thin strips

1 red bell pepper, cut into thin strips

1/4 cup olive oil

salt and pepper

1 tablespoon dried Italian herbs

1 pound pasta

15 cherry tomatoes, halved

Parmesan cheese, optional

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. On a large baking sheet toss all of the vegetables with the oil, salt, pepper and dried herbs to coat. Transfer half of the vegetables to another baking sheet and arrange evenly over the baking sheets. Bake until the carrots are tender and the vegetables begin to brown, stirring after the first 10 minutes, about 20 minutes total.

Meanwhile, cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling water until al dente. Drain.

Toss the pasta with the vegetable mixtures in a large bowl to combine. Toss with the cherry tomatoes. Season with salt, pepper and Parmesan cheese and serve immediately. 

This post is linked to:
Tasty Tuesday
Tempt My Tummy Tuesday

Menu Plan - Week of June 1

A menu plan! Shocking, I know. But after a couple of months of flying by the strings of my apron, it's time to get back on the menu planning wagon!

One thing I'll be doing this week is letting Millie be more involved in meal preparation. Both Millie and Silas always want to help when I'm cooking, and I'm in the bad habit of usually shooing them out of the kitchen. In the spirit of trying to do better and let them be more involved, I checked out the book Salad Peopleby Mollie Katzen. Both this and Katzen's other book, Pretend Soup, are cookbooks aimed at the preschool crowd. Millie already made the egg salad recipe from Salad People this past week. All I had to do was boil some eggs and set out the rest of the ingredients and utensils, and she went to work making the recipe. Not the healthiest thing out there, but I will say that the process was immensely satisfying for her, and she was very proud of the fact that she had fixed lunch that day.


Moving along, here's the plan for the week:

Sunday - tiny tacos (recipe from Salad People)
Monday - (hosting a guest for supper) baked orzo, salad, bread
Tuesday - polka dot rice (recipe from Salad People), baked tofu
Wednesday - coconut vegetable curry
Thursday - vegetable/bean soup
Friday - corny corn cakes, rainbow raisin cole slaw (both recipes from Salad People)
Saturday - friends over for supper, still not sure what I'm fixing. But it will be the first day for one of the local farmer's market, so I'll see what's available there (hoping for some garlic scapes!) and figure out the meal based on what I find.

Hope your week is off to a great start!

For more menu plans, head over to Organizing Junkie.

Anticipation Growing

We went out of town over the Memorial Day weekend. We had a fun-filled time visiting family and catching up with old friends, but we were a bit anxious about leaving the garden. We had just direct-seeded beans, cucumbers, pumpkins and various herbs and flowers before we left, so while there was the possibility for some rain in the forecast, we were still a little worried about how things would hold up.

Upon our return we found that there had been hardly any rain, but the only plant really showing any stress was a hanging basket of violas. This little bean sprout was actually making an appearance this morning:

(despite the parched soil. thankfully we are getting some rain this evening.)

I'm loving this stage in the garden. Most things are nicely established, there is all kinds of promise and potential. And thus far no failures...though I know it will be different in a month or so.

Lots of blooms on the strawberries:
A close up:
The very beginning of a head of broccoli:
Lettuce. I love the contrast of the pale green with the red.
I'm excited about the variety of peas we've planted. See the purple at the base of the leaves? The pods will (hopefully!) be purple too.
And last but not least, blossoms on one of the tomato plants. 
All sorts of good things in store.

This post is linked to A High & Noble Calling

A T-shirt Skirt for Millie

Okay, this was ridiculously simple. But it's a great way to put to good use a t-shirt that should have gone to Good Will years ago.

Here is the t-shirt in question, which I believe dates back to the early 90's.

Simply cut straight across:
Then I just folded the top raw edge over and sewed it down to make a casing and inserted some 1/4-inch elastic. Easy!

A skirt that cost very little, that is comfortable (the most important factor to Millie), and perfect for play.
And she's off!
She did lots of climbing, running, and jumping in this skirt, and I was incredibly pleased with the fact that she had full range of motion, and also plenty of coverage.

Looks like I need to go find some more t-shirts to cut up.

Garden Boxes

Our garden is in full swing, and we are done planting now for a while. All our seedlings , which did really well this year, are outside and in the ground, which is such a relief. We generally use the square foot gardening method, and we've expanded gradually over the past few years. In addition to our garden boxes, I also have flowers and herbs growing along our fence, along with some green beans and cucumbers. But for now I'll just show you what we have growing in our garden boxes. 

Here's the box we have just outside our back door off the kitchen.  You can see that we're using plastic laundry line to mark off each square foot. This box was originally 8x2 feet, but we've expanded it into an 8x4 foot box. Right now I've got spinach, kale, swiss chard, radishes, carrots and various types of lettuce coming up in this box. The big, bushy-looking thing taking over its allotted square is some oregano from last year. I need to move it to a different spot. 

And here's our main garden area, on the west side of our house. We now have three 12x4 foot boxes, and back by the fence one 4x4 foot box. In the corner of the fence is our compost bin. The box closest to the camera in this picture is where we put all our tomatoes, and I also direct-seeded some summer squash and zucchini there. The next box has peppers, eggplant, beets, kohlrabi, carrots, radishes, cabbage and cauliflower. Then the last of the largest boxes has strawberries in about two-thirds of the box, and broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage in the rest of the box. The small box by the fence has spinach and several types of lettuce. Whew!

Here's a closer look at our little strawberry patch:

And the brassicas on the other end of that box:

And just because I thought this was cute, from a couple of weeks ago the first true leaves on a kale sprout:

And the beginnings of red lettuce:
We're looking forward to some yummy salads this summer!

Spring and Birthday Pics

Here's my car-obsessed birthday boy with his car computer from Mak Joan:
And here's the "number three" race track cake I made for my new three-year-old. I love that the cake turned out just like I hoped it would.

Silas was so excited to get skates just like big sister, who was a great teacher.


And not birthday related, but still cute, here are all three of our kiddos and the tulips in front of our house.



This post is linked to:
Life as Mom