From the cupboard to your plate.
There are times when I'm in the mood for extreme-stick-to-the-ribs pasta sauce. I want heavy, I want extremely flavoursome, I want lots...
I satisy this craving with Nutmeat Pasta. I used to make this pasta sauce using TVP (textured vegetable protein) or soy mince, but I prefer the nutmeat (scroll to the third from the bottom) - it breaks down into the sauce more, and I find that the flavour is not as intrusive as that of TVP or soy mince. That's not to say that you can't use TVP or soy mince in this recipe - please do!
Another thing that I love about this recipe is that, if you only have the canned goods, and you don't have any fresh veges kicking about, you can still make a tasty, relatively healthy meal.
So...
Nutmeat Pasta
Ingredients
1 x 415g can of Nutmeat, finely chopped (or same volume of reconstituted TVP or soy mince)
2 x 400g can of tomatoes
garlic to taste, minced (I use a huge amount of garlic, so this is to taste - you can use fresh or bottled, though bottled will give you more intense garlic breath than fresh)
onion, chopped (optional)
1/2 cup pitted kalamata olives, chopped (optional)
1/2 cup mushrooms, chopped (optional - it's also fun to use the canned champignon mushrooms, they have a very different texture)
2 tablespoons dried or fresh "Italian" herbs
1 tablespoon tomato paste
vege stock cube
olive oil
juice of 1 lemon
vegan worcestshire sauce - two to three dashes
pepper
Pasta (I like to use Vegeroni, but any pasta is fine)
Method
Set a large pot of salted water on the stove to boil. When the sauce is about 15 minutes off ready, cook your pasta of choice.
Heat the oil in a large heavy bottomed saucepan, over a medium heat. Throw in the onion and garlic, and cook until translucent but not coloured. If you are using dried herbs, throw in half of them now. Add the nutmeat/TVP/soy mince, and stir quickly. It will stick, so deglaze with a little lemon juice. Add the tomato paste, and stir until mixed. Add both cans of tomatoes, half fill each of the cans of tomatoes with water, and set to one side. Stir so that everything is well combined. Pour in the rest of the lemon juice and the worcestshire sauce. Season with the pepper, crumble the stock cube in and pour in the water from the tomato cans.
Turn the heat to low medium, and leave to cook for about 40 minutes, or until the liquid has cooked off and the sauce is darker and having a Vesuvius moment. You will need to stir this sauce regularly, as it will stick as it cooks.
Pour generous amounts of the sauce over your drained pasta, serve with salad and garlic bread, and share and enjoy!
posted by ZuckerBaby @ 1:11 PM
4 Comments:
This is one of my favourite pasta sauces - so simple and convenient, and tasty. Like ZB I love to cook this using LOTS of garlic - and the lemon juice is important as well. Great when you're feeling like you're getting the flu.
In my version I tend to add a little salt, and also if I'm in the mood - a little left-over chilli sauce - ya know, the dregs at the bottom of the taco sauce jar you didn't quite get around to using, that sort of thing.
Indeed - I think the makings of Nutmeat pasta are sitting in my cupboard at the moment ... mmm .... 'scuse me ... ;-)
Actually - something I forgot to mention is that this sauce can easily fool meat-eaters. I had a boyfriend many years back who was the quintessential meat-n-3-veg-man. I made this pasta sauce for him one night without telling him how I was making it. I just called it a "bolognaise" sauce.
He loved it so much that he went back for seconds!! It was only after we were finished eating that I told him that the recipe was entirely vego and that there was no meat in it.
At first he was a bit flabbergasted, but the poor dear got used to the idea, and never refused it when I made it in the future. Indeed - he even took a copy of the recipe so he could cook it for his vegetarian friends.
Of course I TOTALLY regret giving the useless slag the recipe as he dumped me for one of those vegetarian friends ... grrrr ... there's a lesson in that for all of us methinks!
Mighty Ogbo!
This is also one of my favourites (I use a slightly less elaborate version, can't wait to try ZB's one day when we finally meet again.) What I like about it is that you don't get that fatty animal meat after taste, so all the flavours really come out. I'm not a veg anymore, but I really prefer this recipe to meat ones.
xx
Dan, I agree. It's a much lighter recipe than a meat sauce - and since its all full of soy protein and fibre - very good for the digestion as well.
Last night I was looking for something quick and easy to cook - and remembered that I had a container of left-over nutmeat pasta sauce. There are many things which can be done with the sauce - very yummy on toast for a quick fix.
But I tried something different - making a pastie out of it. Just get a single sheet of vegan puff pastry (Pampas for example), put it in a small baking dish, dump the left-over sauce in the middle, and then fold the pastry up and crimp it to make a pastie shape. Glaze with soy milk and then bake for 25 mins or so at around 200C.
Baking the nutmeat pasta sauce really brings out the flavour too!
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