Roasted Veggie Pasta

Yesterday, I made the best meal yet from all our produce. Since Alycia beat me to a post about fried eggplant, I will wax poetic about the Roasted Veggie Pasta I made last night.

I found a recipe for roasting Swiss chard, and since I’ve decided I’m not a huge fan of sauteed Swiss chard, I decided to try the new recipe. The idea is that the chard is really two vegetables; the leaves and the stalks. Here is a basic translation of what I did.

1 large bunch Swiss chard, well rinsed and dried, ends trimmed
1 TBSP olive oil
1 or 2 TBSP heavy whipping cream
Crushed garlic to taste
Salt and pepper to taste
Parmesan cheese, if desired

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

1. Separate the leaves from the stalks by ripping or cutting the stalk out of the leaves. I folded the leaves over to one side of the stalk and cut them off the stalk.
2. Cut the stalks into half inch pieces and place in a 9x13x2″ baking dish. Drizzle 1 TBSP olive oil and toss to coat. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
3. Roast stalks in the oven until browned and softened, about 20 mins.
4. Meanwhile, tear or chop chard leaves into smallish pieces. This is personal preference because you might like bigger leaves as a side dish. I knew I was putting it into pasta, so I made smaller bites.
5. When stalks are done, reduce oven to 350 degrees. Place leaves on top of stalks and cover. Bake 5-7 minutes.
6. Stir leaves and stalks. Add the heavy cream and garlic and stir (this is when I added the garlic. You should probably add it earlier, but this is when I thought, “Hey, garlic might be good”.) Cover and roast 5-7 minutes or until cream is bubbly and leaves are wilted.
7. Add Parmesan cheese and stir. Bake 5 minutes or until cheese is melty.

That was the end of the recipe I tried. They meant to use it as a side dish, but I wanted it in pasta!

While all that was happening, I cut up two golden zucchini, one green zucchini, one eggplant, and one white eggplant into small pieces. I tossed them with olive oil, salt and pepper. I baked them at 400 degrees for about 25 minutes, stirring every so often.

Meanwhile, I cooked a bag of Ohio City Pasta that I had gotten at the West Side Market. I then tossed it with all the roasted veggies, olive oil, and more Parmesan cheese. We also had some white cheddar and chive chicken sausage, which was an excellent compliment to all that olive oil and cheese!

That giant white spot on the sausage? Melted, gooey white cheddar. Oh, so good!