Quick, healthy spaghetti.

Exams. No time to for meals requiring loads of preparation. Yet I refuse to give up my daily dose of fresh veggies. Here’s what I’ve been eating most of the time.

Pasta A
Whole-wheat spaghetti tossed in olive oil, chopped baby plum tomatoes, olives and celery, seasoned with ground black pepper

Pasta B
Whole-wheat spaghetti tossed in olive oil, chopped baby plum tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes, celery, and pine nuts, seasoned with ground black pepper.

Ingredients are almost identical, I tend to mix and match depending on what I have handy, sometimes throwing in a handful of cheese, fresh herbs or different vegetables. Preparation is basically the same too; boil your spaghetti, drain. Heat up some olive oil in a pan, add in your ingredients, and heat for about a minute. Throw in your spaghetti, toss everything well and serve. All done in less than 20 minutes.

If you spend time chopping your ingredients more finely as in Pasta B, the flavours from the ingredients will blend together better, resulting in a more complex, tasty dish. I also find that chopping things into tiny little pieces is also a relatively good way to release exam stress, although its slightly more time-consuming.