Cowboy pasta

This one is always pretty quick and easy and is a nice spin on the traditional pasta dish. 

Cowboy Pasta

GF Pasta

chopped onion

green pepper

chili powder

black beans

corn

salsa

tomato sauce

Saute onion, pepper and chili powder. Add equal parts salsa and tomato sauce, beans, and corn. Simmer.

Toss with pasta and top with shredded cheese.

Sometimes I'll throw in a little cooked chicken, too, but most of the time we leave it as a meatless meal, since it's pretty hearty as is.

It's always a hit here! Enjoy!

Sausage and pepper penne

This recipe was originally in Parents magazine:

oil

1 lb. uncooked Italian turkey sausage links

1 C. chopped onion (about 1/2 onion)

1 16 oz. bag frozen pepper strips

1 C. water

1 14.5 oz. can diced tomatoes

1 T. dried basil

1 t. dried oregano

1 t. garlic powder (I also use some garlic salt)

1 t. Worcestershire sauce

penne pasta

I actually found a bag of frozen pepper and onion strips, so I didn't do onion separately. For the sausage, I usually don't get uncooked sausage. We like the big Turkey Sausage and Kielbasa things that Foster Farms, and now Kroger make. And they're gluten-free. So I get that, use about 2/3 of it here and eat the rest as snacks. I also add a can of tomato sauce to make it more saucy.

Cook pasta according to instructions. In a separate pan, cook sausage until brown on all sides. Stir in onion; saute for 1 minute. Add everything else, cover, bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer about 10 minutes. Remove sausages, slice (I usually just cut at the beginning, but that's with pre-cooked sausages), return to pan and simmer, uncovered, 20 minutes or until liquid is slightly thickened. Toss sausage mixture with pasta and serve. Enjoy!

Pasta Salad

It's summer, so we have a plethora of fresh vegetables from our garden. I'm loving it. There's something fulfilling about going out to my backyard and coming back in with a handful of food. :) Currently the highest producer is our yellow squash. We get at least one a day. To use some up I decided to make pasta salad.

We used this veggie curl pasta--my 3-year-old is much more likely to eat food that is 1.curly and 2.multicolored.

The pasta was a really good last night, but today for lunch I had leftovers and it was a little more al dente than I like, though still good enough. But it is better served fresh.

I just cut up the veggies I had on hand: yellow squash, cucumber, green onion, and carrots. I steamed the squash, carrots, and onion (I usually include red pepper, too, but didn't have any on hand), then threw those in with the drained pasta, added some chopped olives and cubes of cheddar cheese.

Top it all of with a few squeezes of Italian Dressing, mix it all together and stick it in the fridge for a little while to chill. Then, enjoy!

Sometimes I like to cut up some pepperoni and throw that in to the mix for a little extra flavor, but we didn't have any on hand, so we left it out.