Traffic Light Spaghetti

 

It always amuses me how a whimsical name can turn a dish into child friendly feast. I have called this traffic light spaghetti purely because it features a red, amber and green vegetable but the entertainment factor for Ted saying it was spaghetti with traffic lights was too much to resist.

You could use jarred sundried tomato paste although here I have liquidised the ones in oil together with some basil.

Toss into some cooked spaghetti.

Steam your spinach – preferably kid friendly little dinky leaves.

And roast some tomatoes and peppers. I used these colourful mini ones in a bag from Tesco.

Mix it all together and ta-dah, traffic light pasta.

Traffic light spaghetti

Serves 4

Ingredients
200g spaghetti
2 tbsp. Sundried tomato in oil
1 tbsp. Chopped basil (I used frozen)
12 plum tomatoes cut in half
80g spinach
250g (half bag) of mini peppers or 1 each yellow and orange peppers sliced roughly

Directions
1. Boil the spaghetti in a large saucepan according to pack instructions. Preheat the oven to 200c / gas 6.
2. Arrange the tomato halves and pepper slices on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Drizzle with olive oil and roast lightly for 15 minutes.
3. Using a stick blender, briefly blitz the sundried tomatoes in oil with the basil and set aside.
4. Steam the spinach – I microwave mine in a plastic microwave saucepan.
5. When the pasta is cooked, stir in the sundries tomato and basil mix. Add in the roasted peppers and tomatoes and the cooked spinach. Toss the vegetables through and serve.

To add protein to this dish you could grate over some cheese or add some chunks of cooked ham.