Fettuccine Bolognese

I'm calling this a fettuccine bolognese. I'm not really sure what a proper bolognese is, but m-w.com tells me it's a tomato sauce flavored with meat. Well, this is a tomato sauce, and it's flavored with fake meat, so that's close enough.

I made my basic marinara, with onions and garlic, a can of crushed tomatoes, a bay leaf, some red wine, salt, pepper, and a bunch of Italian spices. Then I stuck a couple of Tofurkey Italian sausages in the food processor, ground them up, and added them to the sauce.

I know this isn't terribly exciting, but it was terribly delicious, and it's the easiest way I've found to make a really "meaty" pasta sauce.

I'm going to be playing a lot of catch up this week, I have posts ready to go about the following foods: pumpkin pudding, peach cobbler, homemade bread, bbq tempeh and coleslaw, spaghetti bolognese, aloo ghobi, and (coming up tonight) vegetable samosas.

Pizza with Teese Cheese

Adieu, VeganMofo. I had a great time and it really kicked my ass into blogging again. I promise that even though October is done, the posting won't stop. It might lighten up a little, but who knows. This week I was out of town for work and then in stupid CLE all day on Wednesday. If a CLE is mandatory for all newly licensed attorneys, it should be equally applicable to all areas of practice and not some kind of civil lititgation love in. That's all I have to say about that.

I finally gave in and ordered some Teese. I was sort of holding out, thinking I'd make it back to Chicago soon and try more, but I heard they finally released the cheddar flavor so I caved. I'm so glad I did, because it's awesome. One of the good things about having a boyfriend who works at a pizza place is that you can bring your own ingredients and make pizza with their dough and their ovens. Actually, most of the pizza places here will let you bring in your own cheese, so it's not that big of a deal except that it's free. For this one, we brought the mozzarella Teese, fresh oregano, vegan pepperoni, and local shitake mushrooms. I ate like five slices last night and then another for breakfast this morning.

It doesn't taste like cheese. I cheat often enough that I remember very clearly what cheese tastes like, and this ain't it. That said, it tastes really, really good. And, of course, it melts. It melts and it browns and it looks just lovely. I mean look at it. While it didn't taste like cheese, it tastes close enough that it didn't make me feel deprived, and I think that's what's important when evaluating an analog. I'll post again when I think of something fabulous to do with the cheddar, but I definitely recommend the Teese.

VeganMofo 16: Focaccia and Marinara

I got my breadmaker back from my friend's house where it was being stored and decided to break it out. I started with this recipe and modified it by adding a bunch of fresh rosemary in the dough and a bunch of nutritional yeast.

I didn't feel like chopping onions. Actually I never feel like chopping onions. I know you think I'm being a big baby, but it really does hurt and my eyes swell shut if I'm even in the same room. Usually I get someone else to chop them, but Jay didn't want to chop them either. We decided to use the handy food processor, but somehow they turned out more like onion mush. Whatever. We added a bunch of garlic to to the mush, then dumped the mush out into a skillet with olive oil and started cooking them. I added more fresh rosemary (we had pilfered a ton of it from my mom's garden), fresh thyme, and fresh oregano, along with some dried Italian seasoning. With all the fresh herbs, the mush started to turn a lovely green color.

I took the bread out of the bread machine when it was done kneading, oiled it, and let it rise for a bit until it was fluffy. Then I smashed it out in a thick circle on a pizza pan and made little dimples with the end of a big spoon. When the mush seemed to be done cooking, I spread about a fourth of it on the top of the bread and put it in the oven at 400.

To the remaining mush, I added a big can of crushed tomatoes, more olive oil, salt, pepper, and (of course) more fresh rosemary. I didn't have any wine in the house, but normally I also add a splash of whatever's handy. I covered that and let it simmer while the bread was cooking, and in 20 minutes we had something magical. As you can see from the picture, I'd already eaten a huge chunk of it before I was like "oh crap I have to get my camera." That's how much I love you, internet. I stopped eating magical focaccia so that I could show it to you.

Edit: I am, once again, internet famous. It's a shame he suggests serving it with grilled chicken, but it's nice to sneak all this good vegan food into the popular media.

Pizza with Pretend Cheese

So, I got in the mood for pizza. I had a few servings of the Follow Your Heart Mozzarella flavor left and some Martha White pizza crust mix, and figured I'd put them to good use. It was super easy and actually turned out really nicely. Of all the pretend cheese I've tried, FYH is the most meltiest. I wish I'd had time and forethought to shred it, because I think that would have made the pizza more awesome, but it was fairly rad as it is. It's just olive oil, spices, chopped tomatoes, and cheese.

Ditalini with Salsa di Limone

I'm sick today. I think it's probably a kidney infection, which sucks, but I've already started popping cipro. I'm sure I'll feel better tomorrow. For lunch I had some classic comfort food: potato soup and rolls. For dinner, I still wanted something warm and filling, but I wasn't in the mood for soup. Ever since I bought the Sunergia Soy Feta I've been sprinkling my salads liberally, but dying to see what it was like with pasta. I went to the food network website and dug around until I found a Giada recipe for Rotini with Salsa di Limone. I substituted ditalini for the rotini, and I used more lemon and more salt than she calls for. I used the Mediterranean Herb flavor feta, which is the only one I've tried, but I can't recommend it enough. It turned out really nicely, very fresh but still substantial enough for a sick girl.

Ciabatta Pizza

I don't know where I saw a ciabatta pizza on the internets, but it's sounded good for a few days now. I had a loaf of ciabatta that I picked up from Fresh Market last time I was there, so I cut it in half and cut it lengthwise. I put olive oil and spices and big chunks of chopped garlic on it, then a few diced tomatoes (from a can) and some nutritional yeast. I know the sprinkling nutritional yeast on pizza is some serious high school shit, but I was feeling lazy.

I put it in the oven at 400 for about 8 minutes and it turned out really lovely. The whole kitchen smelled like garlic and oregano. It was crunchy around the sides but the olive oil kept it soft in the middle. Yum.