It’s been a long day at work and even though you have food in the refrigerator, you don’t feel like cooking.  Plus, you have to run to a baseball game after dinner so there’s not much time to put dinner on the table. Do you pick something up on your way home or order out?  Neither. If you have 20 minutes, you have time to cook! By combining just a few ingredients, you can quickly assemble a meal that is better for you than a high salt, high saturated fat carry-out order. If you have pasta in your pantry and a few vegetables in your fridge, you have the bones of a fast and healthy meal. To demonstrate, I put myself to the test. One night last week, I had an early evening meeting with about 20 minutes to cook dinner. Here’s what I found in my refrigerator: ground turkey breast, one zucchini, 1/2 bag of kale, garlic, a red onion, some yellow cherry tomatoes, and opened jars of pesto and bruschetta. I always have pasta on hand and our garden was producing some wonderful basil.  Here we go…

 

Get all of your ingredients together before you begin cooking, this will keep you organized. Heat the water for the pasta and cook the pasta while you’re making the vegetable sauce.

Brown the ground turkey breast in a little bit of olive oil.

 

Chop the zucchini, garlic and onion while the ground turkey is cooking. After browning the turkey, remove it from the pan and add the zucchini, onion and garlic.

 

Add the chopped kale.

Add back the cooked ground turkey and toss in the tomatoes. Cook for a few minutes.

Finish with a dollop of pesto and bruschetta sauce and a sprinkle of freshly chopped basil. Stir together.

Done!

Of course, you can mix and match any ingredients you have on hand.

Nutrition Note: A serving of a similar pasta dish at most chain restaurants would rack up more than 1000 calories, close to 1500 mg of sodium and more saturated fat than you need in an entire day. Your homemade pasta will be less than half of those amounts.