As in other recipes, you will see in the list of the ingredients “salt and pepper, to taste”, well I wanted to say a word about that. One of the reasons I started this blog is because I love preparing pasta recipes (no way!?) and I wanted to share them with all of you. Until I started to prepare pasta recipes for my husband, I never, ever salted the water for cooking pasta (that’s against the rules I know) and I used really small amounts of salt. It was not because I had health issues or something, I just used to eat food with almost no salt. I preferred adding spices and herbs to add a burst of flavor to the meal. Now I use the salt more often, but still in small amounts. There are two types of salt that I buy and those are Himalayan Pink Salt and Black Cyprus Salt because they lend much more flavor to the food than regular table salt and are healthier. Himalayan Pink salt is the purest type of salt and it is packed with minerals. After I tried it for the first time, I never bought regular table salt again. We all have different salt taste sensitivity, so the best way is to taste when the sauce is ready and adjust with salt. Of course, I am referring only to pasta recipes. Maybe you won’t agree with me on this one, but feel free to share your thoughts with me.

This, for example, is a recipe where I added no salt in the sauce, just a teaspoon of pink salt in the pot with water for pasta. To give more intense flavor to this recipe, I added just a pinch of dried thyme. Thyme is a herb that I use often, it is one of the most used herbs in the Mediterranean kitchen with basil, rosemary, and oregano. It has a minty and slightly peppery flavor and it combines well with all vegetable dishes. In this recipe I like very much the combination of thyme and lemon, it’s really yummy!

I grilled only zucchini because I didn’t have much time to grill the carrots too… but if you like you can grill all the vegetables, it will be tastier. The fastest way to grill them is to slice zucchini and carrots into 4 to 6 lengthwise slices, not into circular slices as I did, it will take you more time to grill them. Another advice I can give you for even tastier grilled vegetables is to prepare a flavorful marinade few hours before you want to grill them with extra – virgin olive oil, pepper and herbs of your choice (like thyme, rosemary, oregano, and basil) and soak the vegetables in. Rigatoni with grilled zucchini, carrots and tomatoes is a delicious light veggie dish perfect at any time of the year! For more flavor, use high-quality extra-virgin olive oil.

So, enjoy your meal and let me know what you think!