Yellow Squash Green Bean Pasta

After a weekend of eating conference food and dulce de leche brownies and restaurant food (all really awesome, don't get me wrong), i felt the need to compensate by making my own dinner tonight. I had FINALLY gotten a chance to go to the grocery store today, and bought 3 types of fruit and 3 types of vegetables (my usual rule of thumb for grocery shopping). Today, yellow squash and green beans were on sale, so i picked those.

When i have miscellaneous vegetables, I usually end up throwing everything together into a soup for ease, but tonight i decided to play "Invent as you go" (IAYG) - come up with a recipe as you're cooking. Actually, this is usually how i cook anyway, but this time I decided to take you through my process. So when i got home, i pulled out one of the funny-looking yellow squashes and some of the green beans, and of course some onion because how can you cook without onion? So there:
I also pulled out my box of Barilla Plus pasta (fortified pasta-like thingies) since i was going for a healthy theme.I had tried this stuff back in Ann Arbor when i was first starting to become healthy, and i could not get through a box of them. Ugh, the texture is just so awkward. BUT i decided recently that i would give it another shot.

Okay, so now what?

First I dealt with the green beans. Some people seem to be afraid of getting real green beans, and opt for the canned or frozen variety. Why? You get so much more crisp out of fresh ones. How to deal with green beans, 101Buy them.
Wash them.
Cut the ends off.
That's it. It's like, the amount of time it takes you to open a can of them. Okay, next i chopped up the yellow squash:Some awesome shots of chopped vegetables...HUAH!And HIYYYYA!
And now the onions join the party.
So altogether it was a handful of green beans, half an onion, and half a small yellow squash. Okay. All the while, boil your pasta (don't forget to salt the water!).

Okay, what now? I decided i'm in the mood for some sauteeing, so i pammed the pan with imitation pam. That's not my actual spraying hand cuz i had to use it to take this photo.
And got out the Almighty and Powerful Spice Trinity
After pamming, i sauteed the onions until somewhat tan (they won't turn golden on pam, you have to be using butter, but i just can't cook with butter). Then i threw in the yellow and green:
Then I pulled the al dente pasta off the stove, reserving some of the starchy water. I gave the pasta a quick cold rinse to stop the boiling process, then tossed them into the pan, and added the garlic powder, onion powder, and [copious amounts of] black pepper. And a little salt to taste.
I threw in some red pepper flakes and cumin too, fun fun. Poured that water i saved into the pan to moisten it up and help coat the spices all over the pasta. Plate it, and you get S-A-T-I-S-F-A-C-T-I-O-N.
This isn't that revolutionary or anything, but sometimes someone needs to point out the obvious. "Oh yeah, it's really easy to make healthy food, i'd forgotten". Cooking for one doesn't have to be complicated or a waste of time. And you know what? That Barilla Plus didn't taste half that bad. It tasted pretty fantastic, actually. Huh.

300 calories. No oil was used at ALL (water and spices were the base of the "sauce"). 3 types of vegetables were used. And it took 25 minutes, and that includes deciding what to make, taking photos every step of the way.

Kiss the chef.