Dinner Bowl #46

 

This was meant to be a pantry utilization meal, but it didn't quite turn out that way--but oh, well, it was delicious! I'll explain. This is spaghetti topped with chickpea meatballs in a creamy roasted red pepper sauce (recipe from The Curious Chickpea) and roasted vegetables (zucchini, yellow squash, and cauliflower).

So the original meatballs recipe uses some bread crumbs, and I have a huge bag of them I'm aiming to diminish during my pantry utilization season, but the meatball mixture was already pretty dense and I was concerned that they wouldn't hold together with the bread crumbs (it would be too dry), so as they were optional anyway I didn't add them. However, these I did just use stuff I already had or staple foods, so that seems fine--equilibrium has been maintained. I think I'd make smaller meatballs next time, though. These held up when cooking and even when simmering in the sauce, but they fell apart the instant the fork poked into them. They'd be easier to eat if smaller, I think.

Also, if you're avoiding gluten, the meatballs themselves were gluten free as I made them, and you could easily skip the pasta, too, and have a gluten free meal. In that case, I might add some roasted potatoes, too.

But! This were delicious. I really enjoyed both the meatballs and the sauce. I probably didn't need the spaghetti, but spaghetti seemed compulsory somehow. The meatballs have rice in them alongside several other protein sources (chickpeas, pecans, and nutritional yeast), though, so they're not lacking in carbs. I don't avoid carbs, mind you, but this was incredibly filling, and I'll have to have smaller servings of leftovers. The sauce is essentially just flavored coconut milk, which, although very tasty, also made it tough for me to eat very much at a time.

The vegetables were glorious in the way that roasted vegetables tend to be. No complaints.