Lotsa Pasta

I love pasta.  Love.  It.  Seriously.  I'm a carb addict.  "The Carbohydrate Addicts Diet" says so.  I don't do that diet anymore.  It makes me cranky.  I've decided that with a husband who works the equivelent of 2 full time jobs and 2 pre-schoolers who spend the entire day with me, its better to be fat and happy than a skinny..... uh.... grouch.
What was I talking about?  Oh, how I love pasta. Love.  It.  I do, however, try to add some vegetables into to the deliciousness and was reminded by my mother

(who is not lazy by the way, but does have some amazing tips for the kitchen, which she tried very hard to teach my ADD self while I was growing up but I was, instead, out kicking people around.... I mean playing soccer... or the stuff I was around for I promptly forgot)

that I was making myself extra work to steam the vegetables separately.

What?
Making myself extra work?
Uh, hello.
That obviously needs to stop 5 minutes ago.

The trick is to add the vegetable to the pasta 3 minutes before the pasta is done, then check the pasta and maybe add 2 minutes to the final time since the frozen vegetables cool off the water.
The other trick is to set the timer for when you want to put the vegetables in, and not try to remember when the timer says 3:00 to put them in.  That never works.  Ever.  The third trick is to set the timer a second time so you don't have carbohydrate mush instead of spaghetti.  I still love the carb mush, but I prefer it to be al dente.  
Having the vegetables and pasta together saves at least one pot to clean.  If you only cook the vegetables for 3 minutes the impact is more like steaming them then boiling them to death.

One less pot to clean = wonderful