Fregola Sarda with Roasted Vegetables

I guess it must be that my craving for so many veggies lately is the fact that the warm weather is here and I just don’t feel like eating anything heavy. I also didn’t feel like going grocery shopping since I’d been running all day taking care of business. So when I got home I looked in the refrigerator and saw an abundance of vegetables. I knew if I didn’t do something with them soon they would end up going bad. I hated the thought of throwing them away.

So I decided to cut up in cubes and strips most of the veggies I had. They consisted of eggplant, roma tomatoes, asparagus and butternut squash. I also had some Fregola Sarda that I thought would go great with these roasted vegetables.

What is Fregola Sarda? Well,it’s toasted breadcrumb-like pasta from the island of Sardinia that is touted for having special health benefits. Plus they say you can indulge in this pasta without the typical carb and calorie overload. Although the carbs appear to be in line with all the others I looked at.

Fregola Sarda has a special kind of dietary fiber called resistant starch that helps maintain blood sugar and improves digestion…plus each serving has 6 grams of protein.

Fregare means “to rub,” and this fregola pasta is made by rubbing coarse semolina pasta and water together to create crumbs. The crumbs are then toasted, which imparts a rich, earthy flavor to the pasta. The pasta is cooked a little like rice, with an excessive amount of water that is allowed to evaporate during the cooking process. It’s really delicious!

So I cut up my veggies, tossed some extra-virgin olive oil on them and roasted all but the cut tomatoes in a convection oven at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes. I then added my tomatoes to the batch for another 5 minutes.

By this time my Fregola Sarda was done so I drained it, placed some on a plate and covered them with my roasted veggies. Carefully using my microplane I grated some fresh Parmigiano-Reggiano over all. Mmmmm it was heavenly. I love the nutty taste of the Fregola with the vegetables. It was just what I was in the mood for. Light, healthy and delicious!

So if you’re in the mood for something and also don’t feel like running to the grocery store, just look in your refrigerator and pantry. Be creative and come up with something with the ingredients you have on hand. You might surprise yourself how inventive you are!