simple things

Just olive oil, organic onions, zucchini, tomatoes & basil from the garden. A bit of salt & pepper, and spaghetti.

So good. Tastes like Summer!

Handmade pasta with roasted pumpkin

With excitement, on Boxing Day I tested out the new pasta maker I was given the day before. On the first attempt I used vegan dough which didn't work out so well (if anyone has a good recipe please let me know). On the second attempt I included a few eggs from my parents’ free-range chickens. It worked nicely.

The pasta was topped with a basic tomato and onion sauce with roasted pumpkin and pine-nuts. Perfect post-Christmas easy meal (apart from cleaning up the flour that I seemed to have spread all over the kitchen…).

Spaghetti & (Vegan) Meatballs

I know I've posted a very similar recipe before, but this was so delicious!

Again using the lentil & hazelnut mixture from my last post, I just fried up some onion on a flat non-stick pan, added some lentil & hazelnut balls and cooked until they were fried all over (just keep turning them every minute or so). Then I whacked in some asparagus and tomatoes, and that's it! Yum!

Walnut Bolognese Sauce

I've been a wee bit lazy the past couple of days, and haven't gone out to buy more olive oil, onions, and a few other kitchen staples. So, when it came time to make something to eat today, I felt I would be inventive (rather than leave the house, horror!)

I felt like a pasta, but I like my pasta rich & a little olive oil-y, but we only had about 1 teaspoon left. So, I thought maybe the oilyness of walnuts would satisfy my rich pasta craving, and made this up.

It kinda has that what-is-that texture that regular bolognese does, but doesn't taste much like it (I think, I can't remember).

(Once again, sorry for dodgy photos, can't wait for summer and eating dinner during daylight!)


Walnut Bolognese Sauce
For 4 people

Ingredients (the things in brackets are what I would have used if I hadn't been too lazy to shop!)
1/2 leek (or 1 large onion) sliced finely
1 tbspn olive oil
Salt/Pepper
Couple of sprigs of thyme (or whatever herbs you feel like)
Bay leaf
1/2 cup walnuts
Large handful of beans - say, 30 or 40? (or some other green veg like asparagus or something)
1 tbspn vodka (trust me)
Pinch of ground cinnamon
800g tin of tomatoes

Okay!

First you want to bash the walnuts in a mortar & pestle till they're the consistency of breadcrumbs. (Or wizz them in a food processor, whatever, I don't care).

It will look like this. Arty shot.

While you're at it, slice the onion/leek and the green beans - if you slice the beans lengthways it will look prettier, but you'll also be more likely to cut yourself so take care.


Great. Now, fry the leek/onion until soft & slightly browned.
Chuck in the beans & walnuts, and turn the heat down and cook for about 5 until the walnuts seem toasty.
Splosh in the vodka (or, if you don't believe me, a bit of wine).
When the vodka/wine has sizzled away, add the other stuff, and let the sauce simmer for at least 30 mins.

Mmm. That's all.


P.S. - this is not quite as 'meaty' as you would expect a bolognese to be - I guess you could add some mashed up tempeh or something if you wanted, too.

pumpkin: roasted pumpkin pasta

Now that we're getting our weekly vegie boxes, I'm a lot more focussed at cooking specific vegetable types. We recently had a BIG chunk of pumpkin in our vegie box, which called for, amongst other things, Roasted Pumpkin Pasta.

It was quite easy to make...

I peeled and roughly chopped my big pumpkin into bit sized strips.

I chucked them in an oven tray with some olive oil, salt & pepper, and roasted them at about 180 degrees for 1.5 hours, until they were lovely & sweet and the way roasted pumpkin should be.

Toward the end of the roasting time, I made a basic pasta sauce, with:
Leek &
Onion, fried until golden in
Olive oil, to which I added
Salt,
Pepper,
Chopped Tomatoes (from a can), &
Spinach leaves

When the sauce was ready & the spaghetti cooked, I tossed it all together with about half the pumpkin, and then served with more pumpkin on top, and some pistachios (yum!)

It was soooo nice. Recommended!

And sorry for lack of measurements, I NEVER measure when I cook savoury, but you'll figure it out!

spaghetti & beanballs

Meatballs are one of those ultimate feelgood foods I think. But not having eaten meat for a long time, I had totally crossed them off my comfort food list until I bought my copy of Veganomicon and found beanballs in there! Like any recipe, I can never follow it and always think my way is best. I've made these twice now, once with breadcrumbs and once wheat free.


Both recipes make at least 20 beanballs.

You will need to make a basic tomato pasta sauce to go with them.

Beanballs

With breadcrumbs:
1 x 410g tin red kidney beans
1/2 cup fresh breadcrumbs
1/4 of a leek
1 tbspn plum sauce*
2 tspn soy sauce
pinch of pepper

Drain the kidney beans (reserve the liquid). Put these in a food processor with the rest of the ingredients. Blend, adding the kidney bean liquid as you go, until you've got a mixture the consistency of mincemeat. That's it!

Wheat free:
1/2 cup of dry adzuki beans, soaked overnight (at least 12 hrs) and then cooked until soft
1/4 cup cornflour
1/8 cup rice flour
1/2 small onion
1 tbspn plum sauce*
2 tspn soy sauce
pinch of pepper

Same as above! Drain the beans, chuck everything in the food processor, and blend adding the cooking liquid as you go.

Cooking:
Roll either of the mixes into balls, and then fry them, turning as they cook. When they're fried all over, simply add them to some basic tomato pasta sauce (mine was just onion, tomato & zucchini). Cook for about 5 mins in the sauce, then serve over pasta!

* - you can use any sweet relish/chutney instead of the plum sauce.