Pasta with Kale, White Beans and "Cheese" Sauce

I had a bunch of random things in my pantry and fridge to use up, so I decided to do an easy pasta dinner tonight.

For the pasta, I used the remaining Quinoa pasta shells I bought awhile ago.  You can use any type of pasta for this dish, but I would recommend something on the smaller side - small shells, orichette, macaroni or orzo, mini fuslili, etc. - as I think it will hold the sauce better.

While I was bringing the water up for the pasta, I sauteed some red onion, kale and garlic in olive oil.  When the veg started to stick to the bottom of the pan, I added some vegetable stock.  I also stirred in the last of the navy beans from earlier this week and seasoned the mix with black pepper.

Meanwhile, I made the "cheese" sauce, which I got from Happy Healthy Life's Spinach Alfredo recipe.  Since I was only making enough for my own lunch and dinner, I scaled the recipe down a bit.  I used the nutritional yeast that I picked up from the bulk aisle, soy-free veganaise, dijon mustard, some of the pasta water and the seasonings the blog recipe recommended - garlic powder, cumin, salt and pepper.

After I drained the pasta, I put it in the pan with the veg and then stirred in the "cheese" sauce.  The creamy texture was spot on, but I think I'd cut back on the mustard next time, as it dominated the other flavors in the dish.  I also wish I had had more beans leftover, as the small amount I had got lost in the dish.

This also might be a good time to mention that I am going to be posting my on 2012 Vegan Kickstart Page in conjunction with PCRM's 21-Day Vegan Kickstart.  The page will include both meals I prepare and meals I eat out.  At the end of the 21 Days, I'll have a customized vegan meal plan that hopefully anyone can follow!  PCRM also provides a sample menu you can use to follow along as well.  While the kickstart technically started today, I encourage you to try going vegan for any 21 day period and see how the experience goes for you.

Quinoa Pasta with Quorn, Brussels Sprouts and Carrots

Since I know so many folks with gluten intolerance, I like to play around with various gluten free pastas.  Also, since I don't like to eat a lot of things made with refined white flour, I find that some of these pastas are good options in lieu of traditional boxed pasta.

Tonight, I decided to play with Ancient Harvest's Quinoa Shells.  The shells are actually a blend of quinoa and corn.  They're a little brighter yellow than your average pasta, but otherwise, the texture doesn't differ greatly, especially in a sauce.  I bet they'd be good in a soup, so I may try and make minestrone with the rest of the box.

For tonight's meal, I started with a sauce.  It was a shallot, soy-free Earth Balance and garlic base, which I deglazed with vegetable broth.  I then added the Quorn grounds.  Quorn does contain a trace amount of egg, so it's not suitable for those following a strict vegan diet.  So, if you prefer to make this dish purely vegan, but don't have a soy allergy like yours truly, any textured vegetable protein (TVP), such as Smart Ground, would be a good substitute.

I then added in some brussels sprouts I roasted yesterday, along with red pepper flakes, salt and pepper.  When I mixed the pasta in, I decided it needed a pop of color, so I added some shredded carrot to the pan.

I think I undercooked the pasta shells a bit, but I liked the contrast of the meatiness of the quorn with the carrots & brussels sprouts.  It also had a nice kick due to the healthy shakes of red pepper flakes I put in.
 

Pesto Pasta, Garlic Bread and Colorful Salad

My sister-in-law and her sister joined my husband and I for dinner tonight, and I wanted to put together a healthy vegetarian meal that would be quick and easy to prepare on a weeknight.

For the main dish, I decided to do a pesto pasta with grape tomatoes and bocconcini (tiny little fresh mozzarella balls).  In case you are unfamiliar with pesto, it's a green sauce made with olive oil, garlic, fresh basil, pine nuts and parmesan cheese.  If you have specific nut sensitivities, be aware that sometimes pesto is prepared with walnuts instead of pine nuts.  (I learned this the hard way, since walnuts are my most intense allergy.) 

Pesto was originally made with a mortar and pestle (which explains the name, which refers to, as Wikipedia says, "anything made by pounding").  However, I find that a food processor makes pesto incredibly easy.  This recipe gets the proportions pretty right, but taste as you go to add and subtract ingredients as you see fit.  It's also helpful to scrape down the bowl as you go so that the ingredients combine effectively.
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I haven't tried to make vegan pesto, mostly because all of the vegan parmesan substitutes I've come across have either soy or walnuts.  However, I did use Whole Foods' vegetarian parmesan, which is not made with rennet or derived from cows treated with rGBh.  But, if someone would like to give it a shot, let me know how it turns out.

For the pasta, I used Barilla Plus Angel Hair.  Plus pasta is made with golden semolina and flaxseed, spelt, oats, barley, and legumes.  It is also made with egg whites, so it's not suitable for vegans.  However, if you're a lacto-ovo vegetarian, this pasta has some positives.  One serving has 17 grams of protein and 4 grams of fiber, as well as 15% of the DV for iron, 28% of the DV for ALA Omega-3 and 40% of the DC for folate.

The one thing that drove me slightly batty about tonight's pasta is that when I stirred in the tomatoes and mozzarella, they immediately sank to the bottom of the bowl, which killed my presentation.  The pesto combined just fine, however.

The garlic bread I made was suitable for vegans.  During my lunch hour, I went to the Foggy Bottom Whole Foods and grabbed a whole wheat french bread.  When I got home, I made a garlic "butter" using soy-free earth balance, freshly minced garlic, parsley and red pepper flakes.  I spread the "butter" on the bread and let it toast in the oven at 350 for ten minutes.  It came out crusty and gooey, just like traditional garlic bread.

Whenever I do a big pasta dinner, I like to serve a green salad on the side.  I got a pre-washed bag of spring mix, which I topped with pre-shreeded carrots, julienned Asian pear and slivered almonds.  If you're not familiar with Asian pears, it's a round fruit native to China, Japan and Korea.  Since they have a high water content, they are typically eaten raw, rather than in baked goods.

I normally don't eat salad dressing, since it's often laden with soybean oil, but I decided to try my hand at making a vinaigrette tonight.  I used this Epicurious recipe, omitting the sugar and using Grey Poupon horseradish mustard (aka, what we have in the house).  It paired better than I expected with the salad, and we put the leftover dressing in a cruet so I can use it throughout the week.  I've learned to appreciate dry salad, but it's sure nice to have a dressing option when I want it.

Cooking for the Masses, Or How Many Lasagna Cupcakes Might Fit in My Oven

Tomorrow (or, at this point, later today) is my sister-in-law's baby shower, and I am on deck to provide the vegetarian options. 

About a month or so ago, I saw an episode of Aarti Party that was baby shower themed.  One of the items Aarti prepared was "Lasagna Cupcakes," which are essentially little individual lasagnas made with wonton wrappers, rather than noodles.  I thought a vegetarian version of this dish would be a cute idea for the baby shower.


Mind you, the original recipe serves 12, and there will be 30 adults and 7 kids.  So, I quadrupled the recipe, which meant eight trays of lasagna cupcakes.  To get to the eight trays of my version of the cupcakes I needed 112 ounces of canned crushed tomatoes with garlic and italian seasoning, 3 pounds of mozzarella cheese, 3 pounds of grated parmesan, 3 pounds of part skim ricotta, two large onions, four enormous zucchini and 192 wonton wrappers.

All the ingredients that I was able to fit on the counter.

I made the sauce in a five quart sauce pan.  Since I knew I had a full night of chopping ahead of me, I decided to use the food processor to chop the onion.  I basically pureed it, but it was still chunky enough to add texture to the sauce.

The original recipe called for chicken sausage.  Normally, when I  vegetarianize a pasta dish, I sub mushrooms or eggplant, since they have a nice, meaty texture.  However, my sister-in-law is very allergic to both mushrooms and eggplant and you really don't want to poison the guest of honor.  So, I decided to go with zucchini, which I thought would be chunky enough to make the sauce interesting.  While the Indian elements of the recipe sound good, I decided to omit the mango chutney and the cinnamon and cloves and go with more of an Italian vibe.

Most of the 48 lasagna cupcakes, pre-baking.

The sauce making and ricotta filling went well enough.  However, when I got to the assembly part, I started to lose my mind a little bit.  After all, I was putting down a wonton wrapper, layering sauce and then layering cheese 192 times. 

So, at this point, I did what anyone in my position would do at 10:37 in the evening.  I called my mother.

"I am about to have a wonton wrapper related psychotic break.  Please entertain me," said I.

"How many of these things are you making again?"  said Mom

"48.  But there are FOUR LAYERS.  Plus an individual basil leaf inside each!" said I.

Mom graciously stayed on speakerphone with me through the lasagna building process, which did make the whole shebang go much faster.  I ran out of parmesan (I don't think I bought a full three pounds after all), but we have leftover sauce and filling that will go into a pasta in the next few days.

All 48 lasagna cupcakes!

Anyhoot, I am glad I decided to do 48 and not 60, because the eight trays literally took up our entire oven and all of my counter space. I put them in for the entire 20 minutes and then moved the bottom trays up to the top rack so they could brown properly.

I finished all of this around 11:45 and which point I started the second dish, a vegetarian version of Ina Garten's Orzo Pasta Salad from Barefoot Contessa at Home.  I've made this one tons of times, and it's great for parties.  Ina's recipe calls for shrimp, but it tastes just fine without it. 

I triiple-plused this recipe, which allegedly serves 8-10.  I used three one pound boxes of orzo, three cups of dill, three cups of parsley, three whole bunches of green onions, one extra large red onion, 14 lemons, two cups of olive oil, two two-foot long hothouse cucumbers, and two pounds of feta cheese.  It ended up being so much pasta salad that I had to split it into two bowls while I was making it.

Yes, this is a ridiculous amount of food for 37 people, some of whom are too young to have all of their teeth.  It's even more ridiculous when you keep in mind that I have the makings for a large fruit tray and a large veggie tray also in my fridge.  Oh, and I'm also not the only person bringing food.

Lots and lots of lemony orzo pasta salad goodness.

However, I am genetically predisposed to making too much food.  This dates back to my great-grandmother, if not earlier.  Nanny Sadie was legendary for making two roasts for Sunday dinner to serve eight people.  Thus, down my mother's family line, all of the women were pre-conditoned to assume that whenever we are preparing a meal, the entire Eagles roster, plus the practice squad, the cheerleaders, the coaches, the medical staff, the beer guys and several season ticket holders would show up unexpectedly, and none of them would have eaten since breakfast.

Have I mentioned I typically make five pounds of mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving?  We do at least eat all the leftovers.

Anyhow, five hours later, everything is in the fridge and ready to go for tomorrow.  The only things I need to do are load all the food and serveware into the car, reheat the lasagnas, put together the fruit & veggie trays, garnish the lasagnas, take pictures of all the food, eat and watch my sister-in-law open presents.  :)

Still Alive and Cooking

Yes, it's been two weeks since my last blog and likely that long since I actually cooked a meal that didn't involve macaroni and cheese or reheating pizza.  Fear not - I've had a number of work related dinners out over the past few weeks, so I have been eating meals other than those usually consumed by picky three year olds.

While I finally had a night at home, I'm headed out of town on yet another business trip tomorrow.  So, I decided to go simple tonight: whole wheat rigatoni with sauteed onion, mushrooms, garlic, yellow pepper, spinach and grape tomatoes.  The "sauce" was made with tomato paste concentrate, parmesan, black pepper, italian seasoning and a touch of white wine.  It was a light dish perhaps more suited to summer than a Fall, torrential rain filled evening, but at least it didn't come from a box.

Adventures in Vegan Convenience Part II

My weeklong vegan adventures continued this week with a few meals out and cooking with our new pots and pans.

Last night, we went to Evolution Burger.  While a majority of their menu items include beef patties, they also offer a vegetarian burger (Veggie Burger #1) and a vegan burger (Veggie Burger #2).  If you have allergies, ask the counter for the ingredients list.  That's how I discovered the vegan burger was soy free and thus safe for my consumption.

A while ago, I did a post about salad options in Downtown DC.  At that time, I neglected to mention Devon & Blakely, since I primarily went there for pre-made sandwiches, namely their English cheddar and avocado on whole grain.  But, it has a terrific number of vegan options as well.  There's a selection of soups, all of which are clearly labeled to note if they are vegan or vegetarian.   Anyone with any sort of food sensitivities will feel comfortable eating here  - I also saw labels for gluten-free and dairy free.  There are also a number of vegan sandwiches.

The salad options are a lot of fun.  You can opt for a small or large salad, mixed leaf or spinach.  You then take your bowl of greens to the counter.  At that point, you choose from a variety of toppings, including tons and tons of fresh veggies, as well as beans, sunflower seeds, nuts and other vegan friendly toppings.  There are also a number of dairy-free dressings.  Today, I opted for a spinach salad with chickpeas, tomatoes, carrots and cucumbers, dressed with olive oil, salt and pepper.  I also had a cup of the vegan lentil soup, which was hearty and full of veggies.

So, while I've been enjoying all of these convenience foods, tonight, I was determined to cook with our brand new ginormous saute pan, as well as some of our other new cookware.  We had an eggplant in the fridge, so I diced that and sauteed it in olive oil with red onion and yellow and red grape tomatoes.  I then threw in some chopped kale, added vegetable broth, and put a lid on the whole thing to steam the kale down.  I seasoned it with salt, freshly ground black pepper, garlic powder (alas, we were out of fresh garlic - I thought we had a few cloves) za'atar and fresh parsley.  I then stirred in some whole wheat rotini (and yes, it was vegan) and the last of my current stash of mozzarella daiya.

The broth added an extra dimension of flavor to the dish, so I think I'll try that trick again soon.  However, it had a higher pasta to veggie ratio than I would have liked.  Rather than making two cups of pasta, next time I'll cut back to a cup and a half.  We'll still have multiple servings, but the veggies will stand out more.  White beans or chickpeas might also be a nice addition, and this mixture can also nicely go over quinoa, farro, couscous or the grain of your choosing.

Roasted Vegetable Pasta Salad

If you haven't guessed by now, I am a huge fan of anything with roasted veggies, so I jumped at the chance to make the Roasted Vegetable Pasta salad from the newest edition of Clean Eating Magazine.  (It's on Page 48 if you're a subscriber).

For those of you who aren't familiar with the magazine, it's chock full of recipes that eschew refined carbohydrates, added sugars, high amounts of saturated fats and processed foods containing lots of additives and preservatives.  Each issue comes with a food budget planner and a monthly meal plan.  While not all the recipes are veg, they're full of fresh fruits and vegetables, and it's often easy to sub or modify to make the dishes veg friendly.

This recipe calls for roasted peppers, onions, tomatoes and zucchini, and a vinaigrette chock full of garlic and fresh herbs.  It also calls for goat cheese, but it can be made vegan by omitting the cheese. I thought it would be perfect to take to tomorrow's Fourth of July BBQ. 

I did make some subs to this recipe for a variety of reasons.  First, as much as I love eggplant, we're taking this to a party at my brother & sister-in-law's house, and as she is allergic to eggplant, I omitted it from the recipe.  To make up for it, I added some navy beans and an orange pepper in addition to the red, yellow and green.  Second, although I was dying to try kamut pasta, it wasn't available at Balducci's (and their whole grain pasta offerings were scant, in my opinion).  Since we had enough errands to run yesterday without another stop, I ended up going with some nicer traditional macaroni. 

Another sub I made was the verjus, which is made from the juice of unripe grapes. They did have that at Balducci's, but only in a large-ish bottle.  A quick google search revealed that red wine vinegar was an okay sub, so I used that and fresh lemon juice.   And, finally, I doubled the whole recipe, which serves eight as it's written in the magazine.

My mother always told me that pasta salad tastes better the second day, so the whole thing is marinating as we speak.  I'll bring the goat cheese along and plan to toss it in right before we serve it.  We'll see how it tastes tomorrow!

Saturday Night Supper: Vegetable Cannelloni

My parents were in town this weekend for assorted wedding chozerai, so we decided to have my fiance's parents and grandmother over for a Saturday supper. 

My original plan was to make stuffed shells from a cookbook my mother had gotten for me, Women's Day Wednesday Night is Vegetarian.  But, when we made our shopping trip to Whole Foods, there were no stuffed shells available, so I decided to make veggie Cannelloni instead.

Cannelloni is a tube shaped pasta that is often stuffed and then baked with a sauce.  I used the Rustichella d'Abruzzo brand, which didn't need to be pre-boiled.  The filling was pretty much the same as what would have been in the stuffed shells - broccoli, carrots, onion, basil, ricotta and parmesan.  I made the sauce from scratch using two containers of mini red and yellow tomatoes, onions, garlic, dried oregano and thyme and fresh basil.  After stuffing the cannelloni (which I had to do with my fingers due to how narrow they were), we mixed the leftover filling with the sauce to thicken it, covered the pasta with sauce, topped it with mozzarella and put it in the oven to bake.

While the pasta was baking, I made the "cleaned-up" version of spinach & artichoke dip from this month's Clean Eating magazine.  This version of the dip had 84 calories per serving, compared to 350+ calories for traditional spinach & artichoke dip.  The secret is using pureed cauliflower and low-fat cream cheese (I did sub neufchatel) to sub for sour cream.  The resulting version was lighter and "greener."  We served it with toasted whole wheat pita seasoned with olive oil, garlic powder and salt and pepper.

For a side salad, I chopped up romaine lettuce and stirred in pomegranate arils, mandarin oranges and slivered almonds.  We added a great dressing, TessaMae's All Natural, which was a mix of lemon, garlic and olive oil.

We barely have any leftovers, so I am considering this one a success!

Linguini with Eggplant, Tomato and Vegan Sausage

Ever on the lookout for soy free meat replacements, I was happy to stumble upon Field Roast Grain Meat Company's products in Whole Foods.  Field Roast takes Seitan and seasons it with European style flavors to make sausages, meatloaf, roasts, cutlets and other meat-style products, all vegan and soy free!

I picked up two flavors of the sausage on my latest shopping trip - the Italian flavor and the Smoked Apple Sage flavor. For tonight's concoction, I decided to cut two Italian sausages into half round slices.  I sauteed the sausage pieces in olive oil until they were browned, then set them aside.  Then, in the same pan, I sauteed shallots and cubed eggplant in more olive oil, then added fresh garlic, two cubed fresh tomatoes and a handful of halved grape tomatoes, freshly ground pepper and two large handfuls of fresh baby spinach.  While the sauce was still coming together, I stirred in linguine to finish.

The fiance was willing to try vegan sausage after smelling it cooking, but he drew the line at vegan cheese.  So, I topped mine with mozzarella daiya, and he topped his with freshly grated parmesan.