Macaroni with Roasted Vegetables

This week our friend Caroline—part of the dynamic duo from DevilandEgg.com—contributed one of her favorite recipes. Thanks, Caroline!

I've been tinkering with some recipes, and I got to thinking about how I'm always trying to get my 2-year-old to eat more vegetables. He loves pasta, and it's really the only way to get him to eat a veggie (but you can't outsmart him by just throwing in some frozen carrots or peas: He spits them out and eats the pasta).

One of my favorite things to cook is a pasta dish with butternut squash, pancetta, sage, and goat cheese, but I wanted to simplify it to make it even more kid-friendly. The dish I've come up with has roasted sweet potatoes and carrots—which only take 20 minutes in the oven—with wagon-wheel pasta and two cheeses (I use Pecorino and goat cheese, but you can use whatever crowd-pleasers you have on hand, maybe Parmesan or Gruyère). It tastes and looks like traditional mac and cheese, but there is no béchamel or baking. And just one pot and one baking dish!

Makes 4 kid-size portions. To feed the whole family, double the recipe and you'll probably still have leftovers. It tastes delicious with a salad of arugula topped with prosciutto.

Ingredients

Total time: 30 minutes

• 2 medium sweet potatoes
  (or 1 sweet potato and 2 small beets to make purple pasta)
• 2 medium carrots
• Olive oil
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• Salt to taste
• 1/2 pound (or half a box) of wagon-wheeel macaroni (or use any fun shape)
• 1 cup of grated Pecorino Romano
• 4 ounces of softened goat cheese, broken into small pieces
• Juice of one large lemon

1. Preheat the oven to 450° F with a large rimmed baking sheet in it.
2. Meanwhile, peel the sweet potatoes and carrots (and beets, if you're using them) and cut them into about a 1-inch dice.
3. Toss the vegetables in enough olive oil to lightly coat them (approximately 2 tablespoons), add the sugar, and season with salt to taste.
4. Once the oven is hot, take the baking sheet out and place the vegetables on it in a single layer. Return the sheet to the oven and roast the vegetables for approximately 15 minutes, or until they're lightly browned and soft, giving them a toss about halfway through so they brown evenly.
5. While vegetables are in the oven, bring a pot of salted water to a boil for the pasta.
6. Cook the pasta according to the package directions until it's al dente. Reserve 1/2 cup of the cooking water, then drain the pasta.
7. Put the drained pasta back in the pot and stir in the Pecorino Romano until all the noodles are coated. Take the roasted vegetables from the oven and add them directly to the pasta, mashing them a bit as you stir them into the pasta.
8. Add the goat cheese, lemon juice, and two glugs of olive oil (approximately 3 tablespoons) and stir vigorously to combine. Add the pasta water in increments to help unify the sauce. (The dish is ready when it resembles a baked macaroni and cheese, with the vegetables smashed and combined and the pasta moist but not saucy.)
9. Season the pasta with more salt to taste, and serve it in bowls topped with more grated Pecorino.