Vegetables with Feta and Pasta

One of the most interesting times in the kitchen for me is when I cook with left overs. 

I always like to experiment around with small quantities of food I find in my fridge. Even though I must say, this recipe slowly becomes a stable in my cooking regime. All that is changing is the combination of vegetables, the preparation stays the same.

What I like about it is the change of flavour if you replace for example zucchini with aubergines or add more carrots instead of bell peppers. It even changes if you just use green bell pepper instead of red and yellow ones. It's the finer tunes that count in this one because you can change the outcome completely by the combination of vegetables and herbs.

For example if I combine leek, aubergine, onion and tomatoes I like to add more rosemary to it. On the other hand if I combine bell pepper, zucchini, onion and tomatoes I add more garlic and basil to it.

Now here the recipe for the combination shown in the picture. For 2 people I cook 130g pasta.

For the vegetables I take 1 leek cut in rings, half a zucchini, half of a red bell pepper both cut in dices, 1 teaspoon ginger-garlic paste, 5-6 tomatoes de-seeded and cut in dices. In a pan I heat 1 tablespoon olive oil and add the ginger-garlic paste and leek. Ones the leek gets brown on the edges I add the zucchini and bell pepper and stir-fry them for about 5 minutes. Than I add the tomatoes and cover the pan with a lit. This way the liquid from the tomatoes stays in the an. Cook it all over low heat for 5 minutes. In the meantime I finely chop 1 teaspoon each of fresh sage, oregano and rosemary as well as 1 tablespoon of basil.

Just before serving I add the herbs and season the vegetables with pepper and salt.

To serve I put the pasta on the plate, on top of it I put the vegetables. Than I crumble 30g Feta cheese per person and sprinkle it around the vegetables. If you don't have Feta you can use any other flavoursome cheese.

In this recipe I combine the vegetables with pasta but you can also combine it wonderfully with potatoes. Especially mashed or pan fried ones. For the pan fried ones I cut 1 onion into small dices, cut the cooked potatoes (about 2 per person) into 0,3-0,5cm thick slices. In a big pan I melt 1 tablespoon butter at medium heat and stir-fry the onions until they are soft. Than just add the potato slices and fry them until they are golden brown. After cooking add salt to taste. Another nice combination is with polenta.

Enjoy and have fun in the kitchen!

Love

Carola