Green Envy Noodles ♥

Today's vegetable recipe: A quick supper or side dish using a quick-cook technique for low-carb pasta and Trader Joe's 'Greens with Envy' frozen vegetables in a simple sauce. Vegan.

Whether this qualifies as cooking, well, is doubtful. But it does qualify as getting supper on the table in a flash. Some nights, well, that's challenge enough, yes? (Even through the internet-wall, I imagine heads nodding ...)

This is a fast, tasty supper, just Dreamfields Pasta (that's the low-glycemic pasta that carb counters can eat and the rest of us love the taste of) and my new favorite Trader Joe's product, "Green Envy" (correction: "Greens with Envy", thank you readers!), a bag of frozen vegetables. Any frozen vegetable would work but Greens with Envy is a great mix -- broccoli, asparagus tips, spinach, green beans, even edamame beans. These five green vegetables really work beautifully together and I'm so grateful to the mom at Trader Joe's who was emptying the TJ freezer to fill her cart with bags of Greens with Envy and offered me one with the explanation, "My kids love this stuff, maybe yours will too." Thanks!

Two tricks to make meal prep really speed along:

THE TEA KETTLE Up until now, the tea kettle was used only to boil water for tea. But now that Harold McGee has taught me how to boil water faster, the tea kettle is getting a right regular workout. I heat up the pasta pot with a bare inch of water (and the salt, lest I forget) and then put the kettle on. When the water boils, it goes into the already hot pot. Usually I have to cover the pot and let the water return to a boil for just a minute, then I add the pasta. I am soooo excited about this -- I can't tell you how many times I've waiiiiiiiiiiiiited for pasta water to boil.

POST-IT RECIPES Inside a kitchen cupboard is a years-old penciled note of the ingredients for a stir-fry sauce (and a page from a 1967 Gourmet with egg recipes, a flea market find and another source of standby recipes, if you must know). And however we keep our 'supper standards', the recipes that can be made from pantry ingredients, I do recommend keeping them readily at hand -- just in case, you know, "one of those nights" appears.

HOW BIG IS A SERVING OF PASTA? Well, as big as we want of course. Or as small. My personal standard is 2 ounces of pasta per servings. Many will find this skimpy, I know, and at first I did too. Suit your own taste, naturally.

NEW READERS, WELCOME! New e-mail and RSS subscriptions are way up this month, so I'd like to take a quick minute to say hello and thank you and -- to ensure you that 90% of the recipes here at A Veggie Venture are based on fresh vegetables. It's just that January is so ... January. After so much rich cooking and food at the end of the year, I'm still in spartan mode and good frozen veggie recipes somehow fit the bill. This too shall pass, I promise.

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VEGETABLE RECIPES from the ARCHIVES
~ more quick vegetable recipes ~
~ more Weight Watchers recipes ~
~ more low-carb recipes ~

~ a year ago this week, Yummy Lunch Cake, another no-fuss and healthful convenience food ~
~ two years ago today, Weight Watchers Garden Vegetable Soup, the famous no-point vegetable soup ~

Green Envy Noodles

Hands-on time: 5 minutes
Time to table: 15 minutes
Serves 4

1" water for pasta pot
Salt for pasta pot
Water for tea kettle
8 ounces pasta

1 pound frozen vegetables (I used Trader Joe's "Greens with Envy")

SAUCE
3/4 cup vegetable broth (or enough boullion plus the 3/4 cup boiling water from the tea kettle)
1 tablespoon cornstarch
2 tablespoons soy sauce (I skipped this)
1/2 teaspoon sugar
Freshly grated pepper

PASTA: Put water/salt onto boil. Bring water to boil in the tea kettle. Add boiling water to the pot, let return to a boil. Add pasta, cover and cook according to package directions.

VEGETABLES: Place vegetables in skillet on MEDIUM heat, just to heat them up a bit. Meanwhile, whisk the sauce ingredients together. Pour over the vegetables and stir to coat. Cover and let cook, stirring occasionally, until done. Mix with pasta and serve.

NUTRITION ESTIMATE
With 2 oz Dreamfields Pasta per serving
Per Serving: 285 Cal (17% from Fat, 38% from Protein, 45% from Carb); 14 g Protein; 3 g Tot Fat; 0 g Sat Fat; 0 g Mono Fat; 17 g Carb; 9 g Fiber; NetCarb8; 3 g Sugar; 1 mg Calcium; 0 mg Iron; 562 mg Sodium; 0 mg Cholesterol; Weight Watchers 5 points

With 4 oz Dreamfields Pasta per serving
Per Serving: 473 Cal (17% from Fat, 41% from Protein, 42% from Carb); 21 g Protein; 4 g Tot Fat; 0 g Sat Fat; 0 g Mono Fat; 21 g Carb; 14 g Fiber; NetCarb7; 4 g Sugar; 0 mg Calcium; 0 mg Iron; 107 mg Sodium; 0 mg Cholesterol; Weight Watchers 9 points

With 2 ounces regular Italian pasta per serving
With regular Italian pasta, Per Serving: 295 Cal (9% from Fat, 19% from Protein, 72% from Carb); 14 g Protein; 3 g Tot Fat; 0 g Sat Fat; 0 g Mono Fat; 55 g Carb; 6 g Fiber; NetCarb49; 3 g Sugar; 1 mg Calcium; 0 mg Iron; 562 mg Sodium; 0 mg Cholesterol; Weight Watchers 5 points

With 4 ounces regular Italian pasta per serving
Per Serving: 493 Cal (7% from Fat, 17% from Protein, 76% from Carb); 21 g Protein; 4 g Tot Fat; 0 g Sat Fat; 0 g Mono Fat; 96 g Carb; 8 g Fiber; NetCarb 88; 4 g Sugar; 0 mg Calcium; 0 mg Iron; 107 mg Sodium; 0 mg Cholesterol; Weight Watchers 9 points

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Eat more vegetables! A Veggie Venture is the home of Veggie Evangelist Alanna Kellogg and is the award-winning source of free vegetable recipes, quick, easy, and yes, delicious. Start with the Alphabet of Vegetables or dive into all the Weight Watchers vegetable recipes or all the low carb vegetable recipes. © Copyright 2008