Roasted Vegetable and Goat Cheese Pasta

There's a viral TikTok dish of roasting tomatoes with a tub of Boursin cheese and using the resulting goo as pasta sauce.  Then I looked up how much Boursin is running these days, and I don't spend that much on cheese.  The flavor of a 4 oz log of goat cheese goes at least as far.  It just meant I had to alter my preparation.

I'm losing weight again, so I'm slowly sneaking more carbs into my diet to see what I can handle.  Straight up sugar is a bit much, but pasta carbs seem ok.  I forgot to put farfalle (bowtie) on my shopping list, so shells it is.  It was that or macaroni, and I didn't think that would look right.

1 dry pint cherry or grape tomatoes
*1/2 red onion, French sliced
*1/2 lb green beans
*4 oz frozen artichokes, thawed and quartered
*2 cloves garlic, sliced
*1 tsp dried basil
1 Tb olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
*4-6 oz dried pasta of choice (I used one cup of mini shells and forgot to weigh them)
1 4 oz log herbed goat cheese
Parmesan and fresh basil for garnish, optional

1.  Preheat oven to 375º.  In an 8x8 or 9x13 dish, toss together vegetables, oil, salt, pepper, garlic, and basil.  Arrange in an even layer and roast until softened about 30-40 minutes.

2.  Bring a pot of water to a boil and cook pasta according to package directions.  Drain without rinsing, and reserve about 3/4 C of the pasta water.  Quickly return pasta to the pot.

3.  Stir cheese directly into hot pasta and break up.  Kind of like making cream cheese sauce in pasta, if you've ever done that.  Add hot vegetables to the pasta and continue to mix in and melt the cheese.  If too thick, add in some of the pasta water until desired consistency is achieved.  Serve hot, with parmesan and basil on top if desired.

Difficulty rating  π