Although it may not seem like it from all the cookie recipes I post on here, I have been working really hard over the past year to lose weight. I had always been overweight for my age & height and finally decided to do something about it. I found a program called Lose It! that would design a calorie plan specifically for me and then let me plug in what I ate every day. If I exercised it would add the calories I worked off back into my allotment for the day. This free app is pure magic and has helped changed my life. Anyway, I am currently doing a challenge on it where you have to eat 150 calories of vegetables a day. I looked at it and said, “no problem”. Then I discovered I never get close to that. Ever. So I went on the hunt for vegetable recipes so I didn’t just eat 5 servings of raw baby carrots a day.

I knew I had saved this Roasted Vegetable Penne Pasta from The Slow-Roasted Italian a while ago but was skeptical for two reasons. 1. Who wants to eat a meatless dinner? 2. I was still on the fence about eggplant. However, if I wanted to succeed at this challenge and get more veggies in my diet I was going to need to take the leap. It was delicious. Like, I’m-eating-the-leftovers-for-every-meal until-they-are-gone delicious. I changed it up a bit. I used regular grated parmesan for the cheese, used more garlic, and used vegetable rotini instead of penne. I thought it added color to the meal & it had more protein per serving.

Recipe: Roasted Vegetable Rotini 

(Serves 5)

What You Need:

1 eggplant

2 large zucchini

2 containers cherry tomatoes

1 pound rotini pasta

4 cloves garlic

1/4 cup EVOO

1 cup grated parmesan

What To Do:

1. Preheat oven to 400 F

2. Cut eggplant and zucchini into bite sized pieces. Place them and tomatoes onto two cookie sheets.

3. Bake for 40 minutes. Note: Make sure to check the veggies often, as the eggplant seems to cook faster than the others.

4. While the vegetables are roasting, prepare pasta according to the package. Drain.

5. Put drained pasta into serving bowl. Top with veggies, garlic, and cheese. Toss until evenly distributed.