Your Vegan Mom

Leftovers: Meatballs to bolognese

 *

Again, with the blaspheming.  I'm sorry Nonna, and the people of Italy, but today I would like to talk about leftover pasta.  Now I agree that you can't just put cold spaghetti in the microwave and expect it to become anything worth eating, but with a little finesse and some soy milk, you can transform yesterday's spaghetti and meatballs into a whole new dinner that is more than worthy of eating.  If I were you I'd even crack open a bottle of wine.   Now, the following quantities certainly depend on how much pasta you have left.  I wrote this recipe assuming that you have about half, or maybe a little less, of yesterday's recipe left over.  If that's not the case, increase or decrease to your heart's content.  This is really less a recipe than a suggestion.  

Quickie Bolognese 

1 medium carrot, diced

1 small onion, diced

1 stalk celery, diced

about 1 tablespoon of vegan butter

about 1/2 cup soy milk 

about 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast 

salt to taste

pinch of rosemary

pinch of thyme

about 1/2 the recipe of spaghetti and meatballs

 

Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium-low heat.  Add the onion, carrot, and celery and cook stirring occasionally until tender, about 15 minutes.  When the vegetables are tender, add the herbs, and stir until fragrant.  Put the leftover spaghetti and meatballs into the pan along with the milk and the nutritional yeast.  Stir, mashing up the meatballs as you go.  Cover the pan, and let your pasta steam for about a minute to revive it.  Taste for salt and serve.  

 

*I said it's worth eating, not worth photographing, okay?  But look at my kid.  He's so cute.  And he's got strawberries.  

With Meatballs the Size of a Baby's Head

Okay, so they're actually quite averaged sized, and came straight out of the freezer case at Trader Joe's, but the perspective still cracks me up. Just me? I'm okay with that. 

Last week, when we needed some comforting, spaghetti and meatballs was just the thing.  Homey, hearty, and simple, it's some serious sustenance with very little effort.  Here's what you need to know: in my potentially blasphemous opinion, there are two key elements to successfully making a basic spaghetti sauce in a short amount of time: a lot of oil (fat carries flavor), and you've got to puree at the end.  According to your upbringing, this may or may not be traditional, but we're talking about spaghetti sauce here, what is traditional?  Probably whatever your mom made, and if your mom made prego from a jar, well then here you go, I've got a new tradition for you.    

Spaghetti Sauce

1 medium onion, chopped 

3 cloves garlic, smashed and chopped 

1/4 c. olive oil 

a pinch of red chile flakes (optional) 

1 28-oz. can whole peeled italian tomatoes 

1 bay leaf 

a good pinch of oregano 

salt to taste 

Saute the onion in the olive oil over medium-low heat until translucent and beginning to brown. Add the garlic and chile flakes and cook for about 2 more minutes, until soft and fragrant. Add the canned tomatoes and their juices, and smash up a bit with a wooden spoon. Add the bay leaf and the oregano and let simmer for about 20 minutes until the juices are reduced (the length of time it takes to boil a pot of water and cook spaghetti will do fine). When the sauce is cooked down a bit and smelling delicious,take out the bay leaf and puree the sauce. Stick in an immersion blender, if you have one, and blend until fairly smooth. 

(So that was the step that I fear every authority on the subject would consider wrong, nonetheless, I do this for several reasons: 1) I don't have a food mill to grind up my tomatoes. 2) This way I don't have to worry about how big or small I chop anything. 3) It emulsifies the oil into the sauce. 4) It's more delicious this way because the onion and garlic and seasonings become one with the tomato - a whole new delicious one.)

Once blended, salt to taste, you'll probably use about a teaspoon depending on your brand of tomatoes and your palate.

By the way, that made enough sauce for a 1 lb. bag of spaghetti, and most of a package of meatballs.  That is a pot of food to feed about 6 people, depending on appetite.  Tomorrow I'll tell you what to do with the leftovers, if you happen to have any.  

Simple Sesame Noodles

Man alive I have so much to tell you. The backlog of good food has been steadily mounting as the days have passed without my writing. It just gets worse and worse. It's hard to break the cycle. And this really is an awfully silly place to do it. I really ought to return with something grand, something to show for my absence, but this dish is just so simple, and it's simply what we've been eating. I've probably made it four times this week with different combinations of vegetables and noodles. Plus, I already have the picture taken, the recipe written, and I can't say the same for anything else that I would like to share. I need to go perfect the tempeh recipe, write down the cocktail recipe, take a better picture of the pancakes, and find out if I can publish the sauce. And I'm really having trouble finding the right words to describe my lunch with the ladies last weekend. Perhaps they can tell you about it? Oh, and we're moving to Shreveport, just for three months, but still, there's a lot to sort out. Any words of wisdom for a vegan family in Louisana?

Creamy Sesame Sauce for Noodles
2 T. tahini
2 T. tamari
2 1/2 T. seasoned rice vinegar
1/2 T. chili garlic sauce
2 T. agave nectar
1/2 T. toasted sesame oil

Mix that together. It won't want to blend, but once you toss it with the hot noodles, it will. Also, set aside some of the cooking water to add to the noodles if you need to thin out the sauce a bit. In the picture above, I boiled shelled frozen edamame along with the skinnyish udon from Trader Joe's and added raw shredded carrot at the end, but the combinations are limitless. However, garnishing with black sesame seeds is essential for both prettiness and subtle crunch.

This makes enough sauce to coat one serving of noodles and about a cup of vegetables which will then make a nice little meal for two people.

(I know that working in fractions of tablespoons is odd, but this is not the sort of dish that requires precise measurements. I got out a tablespoon so that I could find a common language for us all, rather than suggesting you put in a bit of this and a bit of that. Also, in a meal as easy to put together as this, I highly value only dirtying one measuring implement.)

Pasta with Chickpeas and Swiss Chard

When I cooked my weekly pot of beans last Sunday I added a bay leaf, an onion, and a carrot to the mix to make the broth even more flavorful. The rich liquid left over after cooking the chickpeas was perfect in this simple pasta dish, and the rest became the base for a quick soup later in the week.

1 onion, diced
1 bunch chard, roughly shredded
1 1/2 c. cooked chickpeas
1 c. chickpea broth (if you don't have any chickpea broth, use pasta water or vegetable broth)
about 1 T. lemon juice
4 cloves garlic
red chili flakes to taste
1 - 2 T. olive oil
about 2/3 bag pasta

Brown onion in olive oil. Add minced garlic and chili flakes and cook for a few seconds, just until fragrant. Add the swiss chard, chickpeas, broth, and salt. Cover and simmer until the swiss chard is wilted. Add lemon juice. Toss with cooked pasta and enjoy.

Serves 4

Penne Alla Vodka

First off let me admit that I've never had the dairy version. It always just seemed like a silly, unnecessary food fad of the eighties, but then I came across something somewhere claiming that the alcohol in the vodka just enhances the flavor of the tomato without adding its own taste like wine does, and pretty soon I found that I couldn't stop thinking about it, and finally I gave in to these obsessive, all-consuming pasta thoughts before they became a real problem.

So we had it for dinner last night. And now I'm thinking that I'll leave the legwarmers and sweat bands to you crazy kids, and I will tenaciously hold on to my own faux nostalgia for the penne alla vodka.

I can't tell you how true to tradition this recipe is, but I can tell you it was delicious. I was expecting something even creamier, because I have seen those plates of pink pasta pass my table. And wow, now I know. After following this recipe, that certainly does not scrimp on the fat, and yet still came out looking pretty much like tomato sauce, I can tell you that those pink plates you see in restaurants contain a mind-boggling quantity of cream. Here, it's less of a cream sauce and more of a really decadent tomato sauce. It reminded me of this recipe(from a blog that I love, and you probably shouldn't even follow that link because you'll never come back, and by the way I also made that recipe there recently with Earth Balance instead of butter, and it was also very good), but richer.

Vodka Sauce
(adapted from allrecipes)

1/4 c. Earth Balance
1 small-medium size onion, minced
1/2 c. vodka
1 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes
1 c. soy creamer

Saute the onions in the Earth Balance until lightly browned. Add the tomato sauce and the vodka and let simmer for about 30 minutes. Gently stir in the cream. Let simmer for about 20 more minutes. Serve with penne. This makes enough to sauce a 16 oz bag of dried pasta.