Tag: pasta

Pasta with Chinese Tahini Sauce

Do you remember your first vegetarian cookbook? One of my first ones if not the first one for me was Paulette Mitchell’s The 15-Minute Gourmet: Vegetarian. I was a student at San Francisco State University at the time and picked it up at the bookstore there. It ended up being my go to book when I first became vegetarian. My copy is covered in stains from use. While not vegan, it has a few recipes that I still use that are vegan. It’s perfect for people that aren’t that in to cooking, need quick-cooking meals and don’t want to run around town looking for special ingredients.

The Pasta with Chinese Tahini Sauce is one of those fall back meals for me. The ingredients keep well so you can push off cooking it another week if need be without anything spoiling. And it is done in the time it takes for the pasta to cook. It went well with leftover cabbage crunch from the potluck and gomashio sprinkled on top.

 

Summer Spaghetti with Corn and Tomatoes

The year I went vegetarian, 1996, I received Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone as a Christmas gift from one of my co-workers. And I’ve been using it regularly ever since. Again, not a vegan cookbook but there is plenty in here for vegans. I come back to this recipe just about every summer when corn and tomatoes are at their peak. I’ve used corn pasta in the past, but this time I used whole wheat spaghetti. The recipe calls for a little cheese which I just ignored although I did sprinkle some fake parmesan on top.

Oh, and there at the top, corn muffins with that coconut Earth Balance. Need more delivery systems for that spread.

Easy weeknight dinner

It’s helpful to have a few meals you like that you can easily make out of non-perishable items that are easy to keep on hand and easy to make. This one is a great example. Whole wheat spaghetti, alfredo sauce, frozen turnip greens with diced turnips, and vegan parmesan on top.

Fancy restaurant gets it right

Did we all survive another office holiday party season? For vegans, this usually sucks. If you’re lucky, you’ll get spaghetti with marinara or some sad steamed vegetables. Even at nice restaurants where you’d think the chef would have a little more pride. Just because we’re vegan doesn’t mean we lack taste buds.

My company doesn’t give a crap about the vegans that work here (no, I’m not the only one), so I don’t even bother going to work food events. Kevin’s company usually makes a pretty good effort. This year was really nice. The party was at The Mansion in Buckhead. Our entree was ravioli but the pasta part was celery root. The innards were tasty mushrooms. It came with various root veggies scattered around. Of course, I can’t remember what the sauce was, but it was good. See people, it’s not that freakin’ difficult!

Pasta in cheezy sauce

Dinner in a flash seems to be a recurring theme around here. If it’s not so flashy that I’m having someone else cook it, it’s often something that takes little fiddling. Bonus if it’s something that I can keep around for a quick meal without worrying about it going bad.

Enter the easy vegan cheese sauce mix. Your Vegan Mom posted the recipe a while back and ever since I first whipped it up I try to keep some around. I always keep frozen peas and pasta of some sort in the house. And I always have soy milk. So half a cup of the mix, plus one cup of milk equals sauce. If you’re feeling fancy, add soy curls, tofu, chopped up seitan log, whatever. Here instead of the peas, we had spinach on the side and I tossed in some tofu leftovers I had. Really you can just dump whatever you like in it. I only wish I had a vitamix to get the mix more powdery. I think the sauce would come out smoother.