My mom always is keen on making sure her children (and grandchildren) eat their veggies and fruits! So one recipe my mom chatted off to me became my mainstay when making a marinara sauce to go with pasta. First of all, you can purchase veggie-pasta. It can be purchased at any grocery store but of course, you will have better luck at a health food store like Trader Joes, Sprouts or Whole Foods (and your local co-op, support local!)

Okay, you want to get the following ingredients together. Just measure out as needed, I am not going to list cup or tbsp size.

Ingredients:
One large can of tomato sauce (I like Newmanʻs garlic and basil, pick your favorite. Make sure there is no CORN SYRUP!
One can of diced tomatoes
One red onion
One bell pepper (pick the color you like best)
Two regular sized carrots
One Zucchini
Five cloves of garlic
Fresh basil
Two-Three TBSP Red Wine or 1 TBSP Balsalmic Vinegar
Italian seasoning (or if you have fresh: thyme, rosemary)
Salt & Pepper to taste
One package of Veggie Noodles of your choice
Cheese of your choice! (Feta, Parm, Romano, Mozzarella)

Instructions
Boil a pot of water and add a tsp of olive oil and a small handful of salt to the water. Once boiled, strain with a mug at the bottom to collect starchy water and do not rinse. Keep the mug of water on the side and cover pasta for now.

Heat up a deep skillet pan with a tbsp of olive oil. Add diced onion and carrot with a pinch of salt to sweat the onion out (if you shredded carrot wait to add into the sauce. If you chopped finely add with onion). Now, add the garlic for a couple minutes, stirring. Next, add in shredded zucchini (you can shred half and dice the other half or shred the whole thing). If you shredded the carrot, add that as well. Add in black pepper and herbs/spices to taste (wait to add basil since it is delicate). Now pour in the sauce, can of diced tomatoes and about 1/2 cup of “starchy pasta water” and allow to cook down.

Once the sauce has cooked down with the lid on for about 10-15 minutes, add red wine or balsamic vinegar (wine cooked down removes alcohol, however, balsamic vinegar does the trick just as well). Taste your sauce for flavor, add what you need (salt? more pepper?) and then add chopped up basil, stir in.

The sauce should be finished. If your child does not like pasta and sauce mixed together, just dollop sauce ontop of his/her pasta. If you are unsure or your child likes it mixed together (or for the adults), you want to mix sauce into pasta. The starchy water you saved and added to sauce will allow the pasta and sauce to bind together better.

Wa-la! You just hid about eight or more different veggies and herbs! You can even throw in spinach or kale into the sauce and that can cook down pretty good as well! Enjoy!