Dr. Miggy's Healthy Blog for Busy Folks on Tight Budgets

Quick and Cheap Dinner: Creamy Lemon Pasta

November 16, 2009 | (1)

091115_pastaI love healthy pasta recipes. They are usually quick to prepare, filling, and they make great leftovers. I’m always on the hunt for a new veggie combo or a simple and tasty sauce to dress a pasta. Lucky me, this recipe has both.

Snow peas throw me for a loop. I am never sure what to do with them other than throw them into a stir fry, where their subtleties can get overtaken by a spiced-up Asian sauce. Not so with Creamy Lemon Pasta. Their crispy sweetness is a great match for the lemony tang of the yogurt sauce in this recipe. The color combo of the squash, peas and red pepper just screams “VITAMINS!!!”.

Look at their cute faces!

Look at their cute faces!

I adapted the recipe from New Vegetarian Cuisine, putting my own little spin on things. I didn’t have the fusilli the recipe called for, but I did have enough shells and rotini to make the 12 ounces of pasta. Mixing pasta shapes creates playful texture, too. The tip in this recipe that is genius: adding cornstarch to the yogurt to prevent it from curdling when added to the pasta. It worked like magic…or chemistry.

When I make a pasta, I will round out a meal with a simple salad consisting of bagged greens, a few olives, maybe some crumbled feta. I’ve started eating salads without dressing, opting instead for olives and a sprinkle of chesse. I honestly don’t miss it.

Creamy Lemon Pasta

Serves 4
Total time: 20 minutes
Cost per serving: about $3
091115_squash
6 ounce container of plain yogurt
1/4 cup vegetable or stock
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons cornstarch
12 ounces short pasta like shells, rotini, or fusilli
1 medium yellow squash
1 red pepper
4 green onions
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 cup snow peas
1 teaspoon dried fines herbs (optional)

  1. Set a large pot of water to boil
  2. In a small bowl mix the yogurt, stock, lemon juice and cornstarch; set aside.
  3. While the water is heating up, thinly slice the squash and chop the red pepper and green onion. I used my food processor to make short work of this step.
  4. Add the pasta to the boiling water and cook according to the package, usually 8 to 10 minutes. Heat the oil in no-stick frying pan over medium heat. Add the chopped and sliced veggies and the snow peas. Cook for about 10 minutes, stirring frequently.
  5. Drain the pasta and add to a large bowl. Add the cooked veggies, yogurt sauce, and dried herbs. Stir to combine and serve.

Check out all the fiber, vitamin C and iron in this recipe. Thank you, snow peas!

NutriMirror

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One Response to “Quick and Cheap Dinner: Creamy Lemon Pasta”

  1. Dr. Ding Says:

    November 16th, 2009 at 12:34 pm

    I think you should start “branding” some of these here sumptuous delights…maybe this could be “Miggy’s Lemony Snicket” or something? It looks like a giant bowl of WIN.

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