What do I make for dinner after working all day?

With the weather getting colder, and fall colors fading to browns and greys, my mood starts get greyer and I start cooking starchier foods with richer flavours. This of course has the inevitable effect of making me gain 5-10 lb. over the winter; I don't want that to happen this year so I am trying to watch what I make for meals.

However, my life is trying to undermine me, I go to school in the morning five days a week and work afternoons and evenings several times a week and nothing is easier than putting on pasta when I get home. Let me say that there is nothing wrong with eating pasta, but on nights like these, that is all that I eat. Boring, I know.

So, I am trying to combat this pasta obsession of mine by modulating it with seasonal vegetables. If I deign to make pasta, I also have to make a veggie (opening a can of peas doesn't count), and I have to make them taste Awesome(or else I won't want to eat them at all). So I have started buying some frozen veggies, not as bad as I first thought, I add frozen peas to my pasta water, and I use frozen green beans often. But the best way to eat my veggies when they are roasted in the oven or pan steamed. I roast everything from carrots and parsnips to squashes and cabbages. Brushed with a little bit of olive oil and sprinkled with salt and pepper they are so good, a tad caramelized, bursting with flavor and so easy to do when I get home at night from work. I also pan steam veggies(cauliflower, broccoli, brussel sprouts), I heat some olive oil in a pan and saute some minced garlic and a sardine or crushed red pepper flakes then I add my veg and a half cup of water and its done when all the water steams away(lid on).

I think a lot of people over think the veg portion of the meal(I know I always did), but its not that bad once you learn a few cooking techniques, who knew?