Moroccan Spaghetti (Very Low Fat and Healthy)

Sarah_Jayne's Note:

We had this for our main meal tonight. I rather heavily adapted it from the UK tv chef, Simon Rimmer's book 'Accidental Vegetarian'. I knocked out most of the fat he had in it (though it was all good fat) and changed around some ingredients to make it more low GI friendly. On top of being tasty this is pretty healthy. It is vegetarian, vegan, low fat, nearly saturated fat free and great for those of us with insulin issues because it is full of slow burning carbs with a low glycemic load. You could of course use normal spaghetti rather than the whole wheat kind but I use that just because it has a ton of fibre in it.

• Total Time: 20 mins
• Prep Time: 5 mins
• Cook Time: 15 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 4

• 11 ounces whole wheat spaghetti
• 1 red onion , chopped finely
• 3 garlic cloves , crushed
• 1 cup mushroom , sliced
• 28 ounces chopped tomatoes , from a can
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 pinch black pepper
• 10 ounces chickpeas , from a can, drained and rinsed
• ¾ cup fresh parsley , roughly chopped
• ¾ cup fresh cilantro , roughly chopped

Directions:

1. Put spaghetti in a large pot of boiling water and cook as long as the packet suggests. Mine takes 10 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, heat a non-stick pan and spray with low fat cooking spray.
3. Add the onions, garlic and mushrooms and sautee until they start to get soft which was about 5 minutes for me. If they start to stick just put in a splash of water. This is a good way to 'fry' things without fat.
4. Add the tomatoes, cinnamon, cumin, turmeric and salt and pepper and lightly simmer for about 8 minutes stirring frequently.
5. Stir in the chickpeas and heat just long enough to cook through, about 3 minutes.
6. Stir in the fresh herbs and just mix through until they start to wilt.
7. Add in cooked spaghetti and stir to make sure all of the pasta is coated in the sauce.
8. Serve.

Reviews

[Meredith C-ville]

We liked this a lot. The sauce thickened in a nice way and all of the flavors worked together very nicely. I used green onion in place of red and added additional garlic, and served with some shredded parm. Adding the parsley and cilantro at the very end makes for a nice, bright color in the dish. We have been using a lot of whole wheat pasta for a while now and have never been bothered by it, so that part wasn't a problem. My only thing is that I never have success with spag (or other 'stringy' pasta) and chunkier sauces, so I just used penne instead, and everything mixed together nicely. Thanks for a different and tasty dish!

[suziarmywife]

pretty good. Not a garbanzo bean/chickpea fan but heck this one is yummy. Added some sage to it though

[magpie diner]

Certainly a healthy meal and easy to make. I paired it with brown rice noodles, which I think went really well with this style of sauce. The spice combo wasn't quite right for me, maybe a little less of cinnamon and more of something else would have have done the trick, something was just a little lacking flavour wise. My children had it with feta cheese on top and thought it was pretty good, so maybe that's a good finishing touch. In any case, was a good recipe to try so thanks for posting! ZWT6.