Ingredients
2 cups fresh basil
1/4 cups almonds or pine nuts
2/3 cups olive oil
2 cloves garlic
1/2 cup nutritional yeast flakes
3 plum tomatoes, diced
1 lb whole wheat pasta
Salt to taste
Process
While your pasta is cooking, put basil, nuts, garlic, and oil in the food processor and pulse until the nuts are fairly fine.
When pasta reaches al dente, drain. Add nutritional yeast (nooch) to pesto and pulse to mix. Toss pesto with pasta. Serve with diced tomatoes sprinkled on top.
Tonight’s photo shoot went south when I accidentally deleted all the shots and reformatted the disk. So, another shot was required, in the dark, which is much less good. Fortunately, the food was much more gooderer!
Ingredients
2 lb black beans, dried
1 medium onion, diced
2 celery stalks, diced
1 jalapeno
2 T veggie broth powder or 2 cups of broth
2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp salt
2 T olive oil
1 small can tomato sauce
Process
If you are not using a pressure cooker, presoak the beans for 6-8 hours.
Place beans, olive oil, onion, celery, and the whole jalapeno in your large pan or pressure cooker. Add fresh water to about 1.5 inches over beans. Cook per directions. I used the pressure cooker, brought it to high pressure, and cooked for 20 minutes and then allowed it to depressurize naturally.
After beans are cooked through, add seasoning and tomato sauce and allow to simmer for an additional 10-15 minutes while you cook rice or couscous (or other grain) for serving.
Serve with or over a grain or use in burritos. I served it here with tri-color couscous and cantaloupe.
Lasagna always seems like way too much work before I start, but then it’s really not that bad, and it’s so tasty and filling. This vegan lasagna won’t seem to be missing a thing without the cheese! I make it a little different every time, in terms of the veggies, so don’t hesitate to branch out.
Ingredients
I love this picture other than the Biggest Loser advertisement. Oy!
12 lasagna noodles, cooked al dente
3 T. olive oil
3 cloves garlic minced
1 medium onion diced
1 stalk celery, diced
2 cups mushrooms, sliced
1 medium red pepper, diced
1 small zucchini, diced
1 cup carrots, diced
2 cups tomatoes, diced
1-2 cups kale, chopped
2 T Italian seasoning
1 large can/jar tomato puree
1 package extra firm tofu
1 T apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1/4 cup raw sugar
Sea salt
Process
In a large pan, add onions, olive oil, and garlic. Cook over medium temp, stirring often, until onions begin to soften and fragrance is released. Add remaining vegetables (except the kale) and continue to cook until they begin to soften. Stir in tomato puree and most of the Italian seasoning (I like to save a little for the tofu ricotta). Add sea salt to taste. If you like a sweeter sauce, add the raw sugar gradually, tasting for your degree of sweet. Allow to simmer 20 minutes over medium low temp.
While the sauce simmers, cook noodles to al dente and set aside in cool water or lay out on parchment paper.
Drain tofu and place in a bowl. Using a fork, smash block until the texture resembles ricotta cheese. Add vinegar, 1/2 if the nutritional yeast, the rest of the Italian seasoning, and ½ t. sea salt and mix.
Once your sauce has simmered nicely and noodles are ready, spread a layer of sauce over the bottom of the pan. Place a layer of 3 noodles on top, overlapping slightly. Crumble 1/2 the tofu mix across the noodles, add a layer of chopped kale. Now put in another layer of noodles, then sauce, then sprinkle on nutritional yeast. Repeat this process. You should end with a layer of sauce sprinkled with yeast.
Cover tightly with foil and place pan in oven at 375* and bake for 45 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to sit for 10 minutes before cutting to serve.
If you would like to have some later, let it cool and then place in the fridge or freeze in single servings. For reheating, put in 350* oven or microwave.
