Would you like a little trick to lighten your pasta?  Mix your pasta with zucchini!  If you have spaghetti – julienne the zucchini.  Fettuccine – peel into ribbons.  Penne – cut into rectangles (the easiest and quickest choice).  Add to the pot in the last minute of boiling the pasta and that’s it.  You can have the same volume of food but with a fraction of the kilojoules.  Shhh… don’t tell anyone and it can be our little secret 🙂

Here’s a little recipe to inspire you.  This one came about as I saw a punnet of beautiful heirloom tomatoes at the supermarket.  With such colour they deserved a simple recipe to only further enhance their flavour and vibrancy.  Each serve has nearly 4 servings of vegetables too, so it’s packed full of goodness for you.  Enjoy.

Don’t worry, I don’t often have heirloom tomatoes sitting in my fridge.  Cherry tomatoes would work just as beautifully.

Zucchini pasta with tomato and basil

Serves 2

Ingredients

375 grams heirloom variety tomatoes

2 x zucchini (courgette), peeled into ribbons

120 grams pappardelle pasta

1 tablespoon olive oil

¼ teaspoon chilli flakes

¼ teaspoon balsamic vinegar

salt and pepper

¼ bunch basil leaves

parmesan cheese, shaved

Steps

• Cook pasta until al dente and in last minute add zucchini ribbons
• Drain pasta and zucchini and keep aside
• Heat oil in saucepan over high heat
• Add tomatoes and chilli flakes
• Stirring frequently, cook for 3-4 minutes until a few tomatoes have softened
• Remove saucepan from heat, adding balsamic vinegar, pasta and zucchini to tomatoes
• Add salt and pepper to taste
• Stir through basil just prior to serving
• Serve with parmesan cheese on top

Per Serve

1670 kj, protein 14 g, total fat 15 g, sat fat 4.4 g, carbs 48 g (sugars 5.7 g)

Note: 15 grams of parmesan per serve were included in the above nutritional analysis