Vegetable and Chicken Pasta Bake

Raymond came home Friday for good!!! Wooohooo!!! It's soooo nice to finally have him home and knowing the Navy cant take him from me again haha. So with him being home, I am starting to try more 'meals'. I say 'meals' because a lot of times for dinner, it ends up being a here and there kind of meal. I dont ever eat a whole meal at one time. With a goal of being healthier, and knowing he loves pasta, I combined the two. I found a recipe online for a vegetable ziti and tweaked it to make it my own. I was extremely pleased with how it turned out. I will definitely be making this more often :) 

Vegetable and Chicken Pasta Bake

Ingredients

• 1.5 cups uncooked rotini(or ziti, or penne, or whatever floats your boat lol)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1.5 cups chopped yellow squash
• 1.5 cups chopped zucchini
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 1 cup(1 10oz can) rotel tomatoes with green chiles(if you dont want the spice just do a cup of chopped tomatoes)
• 1 cup chopped orange pepper
• 1 cup chopped spinach
• 1 cup shredded chicken
• 2 big garlic cloves, minced
• 1 cup shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese, divided
• 5 tsp basil
• 2 tsp oregano
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup part-skim ricotta cheese
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• Cooking spray

Directions

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees
• Cook pasta according to instructions and boil chicken until cooked through
• Chop up all veggies and shred your chicken and shred your cheese if you use block cheese
• Heat up oil in a large skillet and saute squash, zucchini, peppers and onion for about 5 mins
• Add tomatoes and garlic and cook another 3-5 mins
• Add in spinach and cook until mostly wilted
• Turn off burner and stir in spices and then add chicken, pasta and 1/2 cup of the mozzarella
• In a small bowl, combine egg and ricotta cheese and then pour mixture over your pasta and veggies and mix until all is covered
• Spray an 8x8in glass cooking pan and then pour your veggie pasta in and spread out evenly
• Sprinkle with remaining 1/2 cup of cheese and then bake for 15-20 minutes
• Take out and enjoy!