Today I came home from a weekend Belgium with my volleybalteam. We had a fab weekend in Leuven! But when I came home I realized that we didn’t have much in stock for dinner. After a quick stocktaking I jumped to the conclusion that all we had were some onions, cherry tomatoes, garlic and a little lettuce. Because of the Easter Holidays I wasn’t able to get some new grocery. But the things I had were perfect ingredients for a pasta aglio é olio!

You might know by now that I try to minimize my intake of wheat (gluten) because this always gave me a bloated feeling. Too bad that pasta’s also contain gluten, since they are made of wheat as well. A pity because I really love a good pasta dish! But, no reason to panic! In some supermarkets (and I think in every natural foodshop) you can buy glutenfree pasta’s! Luckily I had a bag of Teff pasta in stock for my pasta aglio é olio (with my own twist of course!). Did you know that Teff pasta is also eggfree, dairyfree, sugarfree and soyfree?

Teff is a glutenfree grain. In contrast to wheat Teff doesn’t contain fytic acid, which obstruct the absorption of nutrients by our body. Therefore Teff is ‘better’ for your health than wheat products. Furthermore, Teff is high in calcium and iron and it doesn’t make your bloodsugar peak too much.

Back to the pasta Aglio é olio! Basically it’s just pasta with olive oil, garlic and a red pepper. That’s not an awful lot if we talk about veggies.. I gave the original recipe my own twist by adding cherry tomatoes and two small onions. A salad as a side dish and you have a propper meal!

How do we make this pasta?

Here’s what you need (1 person):

• 1 cup of pasta (you can use any kind you like, I used the Teff pasta)
• about 150 gram of cherry tomatoes (halved)
• olive oil
• 1 glove of garlic (pressed)
• half red pepper (diced into small pieces)
• 2 small onions or 1 bigger one (chopped)

Bring a pan water to the boil for the pasta and cook it according to the despription on the package. Add about 3 tbsp of olive oil to a pan and slighty warm the oil (not too hot!), add the crushed and pressed garlic to the oil and let is simmer for a while. The garlic will give it’s taste to the warm (not HOT!) oil. Add the chopped onions and pepper to the oil. Add the halved cherry tomatoes after about 5 minutes. When the pasta is cooked, drain and add to the pan with the oil, garlic, pepper, onion and tomatoes. Mix it all together and serve with a green salad.

You can also choose to add some more veggies to the pasta, like peas or mushrooms! Go ahead and give it your own twist as well!

Enjoy!

♥