Your Vegan Mom

Pasta with Smoky Eggplant and Tomatoes

There was a brief period in our lives before Desmond and Felix, before we were married, when I had my first grown-up job, and there was no mortgage, when Paul and I went out to eat whenever we felt like it.  It was pretty great, and obviously, fleeting.  We were even regulars.  There was this little Italian restaurant in that mini mall across from the Beverly Center where we ate every week or so.  The waitress knew us and we always ordered the same thing - I can still taste it - it was this perfectly luscious, summery pasta with smoky eggplant.  It was so good.  And so worth making our own.

Pasta with Smoky Eggplant and Tomatoes

Serves 4 - 6

 1 lb fusilli
 about 1/4 cup olive oil (divided)
 3-4 cloves garlic, sliced
 2 1/2 lbs tomatoes (I used 2 big fat heirloom tomatoes)
 1 medium eggplant
 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
 about 1 T red wine vinegar (optional, depending on your tomatoes)
 a few leaves of basil
 salt 
 smoked sea salt (optional)

Boil pasta.  In a large skillet gently toast the garlic in 2 - 3 tablespoons of olive oil.  When the garlic is lightly browned and fragrant, add the chopped tomatoes and a good pinch of salt.  Let simmer until the tomatoes have grown saucy and begun to reduce.  In the meantime, slice the eggplant about 1/4 inch thick, brush with oil, sprinkle with salt, and grill over medium heat until squishy and nicely browned.  

Once the tomatoes have reduced a bit  (They’ll still be more watery than you would like in the finished pasta dish.) stir in the nutritional yeast and the eggplant.  

When the pasta is just al dente, drain it and toss it into the sauce to finish cooking.  Just before serving, stir in another swirl (about 2 T) of olive oil.  Taste for salt.  If you happen to have it, you could add a pinch of smoked sea salt at this point, but it's just a little bonus.  And if your tomatoes are very sweet and mild you might want to add a little swig of vinegar.  

Garnish with fresh basil and serve. 

Vegan Baked Ziti

I recognize that it is not hearty pasta bake season.  And yet still, somehow, I have made this bubbling casserole twice in a week (and I'm eating some leftover right now at 8:45 AM on June 26th - I'm pregnant and looking at food photos, okay?)  It is just such a simple crowd pleaser.  And this past weekend, out in the desert to visit Paul's family there was a crowd to be pleased.  With new babies (the niece, this one's not due til September) to be snuggled and stories to be shared and many, many back issues of food magazines to be read, I did not want to spend a lot of time in the kitchen.  So, I came with my giant tub of cashew ricotta and my jar of sauce and my bag of pasta, and all that was left was for Paul, despite the fact that we were there to celebrate father's day, to assemble it.  (Have I mentioned lately how much I love that dude?)  

After lots of running around and ducking of father-son water wars and playing toddler rules pool, there was a gaggle of hungry cousins and aunts and uncles and a nana and tapa to devour this super simple pasta dish.

So tuck this recipe away for when you're ready to turn your oven on again.  Or, if that happens to be right now, then let me suggest you start by doubling the ricotta recipe.  It will keep in your fridge for about a week, and that creamy cashew cheese goes really nicely scooped into half a juicy ripe summer peach.  

Baked Ziti

Way easier than lasagna, but packing that same crowd-pleasing punch, this will serve 6 - 8.

1 lb. tube pasta (such as ziti, penne, or rigatoni)

2 1/2 c. tomato sauce (psst, that's how much is in your favorite jar)

1 c. cashew ricotta (see recipe below)

olive oil

topping:

1/4 c. bread crumbs 

2 T. nutritional yeast

1/4 t. salt

1 T. olive oil

Heat oven to 400 and smear some olive oil around a 9 by 13 inch casserole dish.  Boil pasta until just al dente.  In a small bowl, stir together ingredients for topping and set aside.  Toss cooked and drained pasta into prepared casserole dish.  Pour in tomato sauce and cashew cheese.  Stir gently to coat pasta while still leaving pockets of cheese in tact.  Sprinkle bread crumb mixture on top.  Cover and bake 25 minutes, until heated through.  Uncover and bake 5 more minutes.  

Cashew Ricotta

This is the same cheese you made for the fig topped pizza last fall.  And if you didn't listen to your mom and make that pizza, well figs are getting ripe again, and I did already tell you to double the recipe, right?  Also, I'll mention again that this recipe is adapted from my favorite vegan cookbook, Nonna's Italian Kitchen by Bryanna Clark Grogan.  

1 (12.3 oz.) box firm silken tofu
1/3 cup whole raw cashews
1 T. lemon juice
1/4 t. salt

Grind the cashews in the food processor until very fine.  Add the tofu, lemon juice, and salt, and process until smooth.  

Mark Bittman's Spaghetti with Broccoli Rabe

I feel my cooking mojo coming back.  After the nausea of the first trimester which lingered into the beginning of the second with stomach-turning sensitivity to delicious smells like garlic and onions and then just plain exhaustion for a couple weeks (There's all sorts of crazy stuff going on in there like the formation of extruding ears!  I think if your body is producing a brand new pair of ears, you deserve to sit on the couch and order takeout.), I am now ready to return to the kitchen, and for more than just inoffensive sweet stuff.  

Just last Saturday, I sauteed onions, and then I did it again on Sunday.  Last night I toasted garlic to make this pasta for dinner.  By the way, when I'm making a really simple pasta like that, the sort that usually calls for parmesan cheese, I mix in a bit of the salty pasta water and a scoop or two of nutritional yeast to give the minimal sauce a bit of body and nutritional heft.  And of course, taste for salt, because that parmesan you left out is salty.  And then it's nice to serve your pasta with a wedge of lemon if you have it laying around.  It looks pretty and gives a simple dish like this that little something it might be missing.  

I always enjoy Mark Bittman's Minimalist column (and Desmond's a fan of his short cooking videos) for simple meal ideas, but lately they've been particularly vegan-friendly or at least easily adaptable. Plus, his quick and creative recipes are a really good way to motivate my big fat teetering baby steps towards the stove.  

Mac 'n Cheese Bites

When we last spoke, I was making dinner.  I had seitan, potatoes, and kale to turn into some sort of meal for the family.  Remember?  It was Friday.  It had been a pretty ho-hum dining week in our house, and I was feeling ready to turn it around with a solid end-of-a-crazy-week meal.

And I did.  Friday night's dinner was so freakin' delicious.  I ditched the potatoes, and boiled some spaghetti.  I tossed it with some butter (Earth Balance), minced garlic, nutritional yeast, a bit of the pasta water, some finely chopped italian parsley, and salt.  Tasty and simple.  I sauteed the kale in olive oil with more garlic and salt, and squeezed in a wedge of lemon at the end.  I browned the seitan cutlets in a bit of olive oil, and heated up the leftover spaghetti sauce.

I served the cutlets drizzled with tomato sauce, next to the simple, cheesy spaghetti, and the garlicky greens.  It was a perfect Friday night meal.

But, in no way related to mac 'n cheese?  I'm getting there.

The next morning, we needed a restorative weekend breakfast to continue cleansing our palates of the preceding five days.  We had odds and ends of the previous night's dinner leftover, and we decided to put them into a frittata.  I whipped up an eggy mixture (inspired, as always when breakfast calls for some sort of structured egg-type dish, by Susan Voisin's mini quiche recipe) and stirred in the leftover pasta and the finely chopped sauteed kale.  I poured this mixture into a well-greased and parchment-lined cake pan and baked it at 375 for about 45 minutes, until it was firm in the middle and browned on top.  

We ate wedges of the frittata drizzled with that never-ending tomato sauce and thick slices of whole grain toast.  Good, good breakfast.

And do you know what it reminded me of?  The baked mac 'n cheese that my dad made when I was a kid.

You know those chewy end bits?  

So the next day we put that action to work on some mac n' cheese, in bite-size form.  You could, and in the future I intend to, add some shredded greens or whatnot, to turn these into little complete meal nuggets.

Not fine dining, but incredibly practical when you have a toddler in the house, or I suppose when you have some sort of big sporting event to watch on the T.V.

And so, so delicious.  

Mac 'n Cheese Bites
I don't use fake cheese a lot, but it's pretty essential here.  I tried to use a nutritional yeast based cheese sauce, but they turned out too creamy, not enough chewy. 

1 1/2 c. elbow macaroni, boiled in salted water, and drained
1 1/2 c. grated cheddar (I used Follow Your Heart)
2 T. minced green onion (yellow onion works too)

eggy mixture:

1 package firm silken tofu
1/4 c. soy milk
2 T. nutritional yeast
1 T. corn starch
1 T. butter (I used Smart Balance Light)
1/2 t. salt

Heat the oven to 375.  Grease two muffin pans with cooking spray.  

Whir all the ingredients for the eggy mixture in the blender or food processor until smooth. 

In a large bowl stir together the macaroni, the grated cheese, the minced onion, and the eggy mixture.  Spoon into the prepared muffin pans.  

Bake at 375 for 30 minutes or until the edges are nicely browned and the middle is firm.  

Cool in pan for a few minutes before you gently dump them out.  

Makes 18 smallish muffin-size macaroni bites or 48 tiny mini-muffin bites.  

And if you would like to turn this into a whole big trashy finger food buffet, you might add:

onion dip

meatballs

tater tots

A Week of Summer: Smoky roasted eggplant and tomato sauce

The Recipe

1 lb eggplant
1 lb roma tomatoes, halved
1 medium onion, cut into half-inch slices
8 cloves garlic, whole, peeled
drizzle of olive oil
pinch of chile flakes
about 2 T. chopped basil
2 t. balsamic vinegar
salt to taste

On a gas burner or under the broiler, char the eggplant on all sides.  This takes just a few minutes.  Watch and turn it.  

Heat the oven to 400.  Arrange the tomato, onion, and garlic in a baking dish.  Drizzle with olive oil and toss to coat.  Put the whole eggplant with the charred skin directly on the oven rack next to the tomato dish.  Roast for about 40 minutes, until the eggplant is squishy and the tomatoes are crinkly.  

Scrape the soft flesh from the eggplant into a food processor, disposing of the charred skin.  Add the tomatoes, garlic, and onion, scraping all the juices into the bowl of the machine.  Add the vinegar, a pinch of red chile flakes, and salt.  If I were you I would add another swirl of olive oil here too.  Puree.  And taste for salt.

Serve over pasta.  Garnish generously with chopped basil.   

(Don't you hate it when a magazine obviously uses some old stock photo and thinks that you won't notice that it is clearly not of the corresponding recipe?  That's totally what's going on here.  This sauce will be creamier and smoother from the luscious, smoky roasted eggplant flesh.  And of course, the top should also be littered with basil.  Mmm summer.)