I like to cook dinner Sunday night, as a relaxing way to end the weekend, and an easy way to stockpile healthy meals for busier weeknights. Dieters, hijack the boy scout motto: Always be prepared!

This Sunday, Z. requested “something light.” Pretty much everything I make is light, but he was right: Something extra- special light was required. We had spent Saturday at the San Diego Wild Animal Park, and between us ate our way through the animal kingdom: hotdog, hamburger, turkey pesto sandwich, ribs, bbqed chicken. And then there were the multiple chardonnays and vodka rocks we drank as the sun set over the East Africa Exhibit. Boy, giraffes are skinny!

Which brings us to dinner: If you want to reduce your calories but still enjoy a tasty, nice-sized meal, load up on the veggies. Remember that in any recipe that’s a mix of carbs and veggies (pasta and veggies; rice and veggie casseroles, grain salads, etc.) you can bulk up the veggies and reduce the carbs without changing much else, particularly in recipes where the veggies are sauteed first, reducing extra water.

So, wanting to try something new, I decided to turn to my The Best of Cooking Light cookbook (thanks mom!). After agonizing over the “Carbs or no carbs” question, I finally decided on carbs – healthy carbs, in this case Healthy Harvest carb-reduced linguine, which is full of protein and fiber.

Et voila: Linguine with Two Sauces (original recipe here).

The bulk of this recipe consists of a pound of linguine and 4 cups mushrooms. I increased the mushrooms to 5-6 cups, added 4 sliced zucchinis to the mix, and reduced the pasta to half a pound.

The result was a very tasty and rich-seeming “comfort” dish – something perfect for a quiet Sunday night although probably not something I’d make for company. It was light on calories (the original only had 300 a serving; 6 WW points) and heavy on veggies. Not quite heavy enough though – next time I’ll add 3-4 cups of a third vegetable (carrots? Red pepper? Asparagus? Maybe even broccoli) and reduce the pasta to 1/3 lb.

Final note: I didn’t bother making the red sauce. I used TJ’s Basil Marinara, which I always keep in the cupboard.

Bon apetite!