Vegetarian Greek Pasta

Since we bought the juicer we've made fresh pasta a handful of times. And each time we've made pasta, I've made pesto to go with it. Pesto is amazing but I figured it was time to try a something new.


Pasta
1 cup flour
1 egg*
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tbs water
*I've  found some vegan pasta dough recipies I just haven't tried them yet.

Mixed ingredients in a bowl and then kneaded dough. After, I let the dough rest for about an hour. Finally, I ran it through my Omega juicer right in to a pan of boiling water. The pasta only takes about 3 minutes to cook when it is fresh.

After the pasta was cooked, I drained it and tossed in the ingredients below.

Tossed with
1/2 cup crumbled feta
2 tbs diced black olives
1/4 sauteed red onion

Other than letting the dough rest, this is a quick meal to whip up. Cooking the pasta, and preparing the other ingredients took less than twenty minutes.

I really loved the feta/olive combination. And after a particularly bad experience with a red onion a few years ago, I can see myself wanting to use more red onions in the future after eating this dish.

The Carnivore also really liked this dish. I served his with a hand breaded (panko, salt, pepper) and pan friend chicken breast.

I will certainly make this dish again this winter when I'm craving olives. But, I could also see myself serving it cold this summer at a picnic.

Vegan Stuffed Shells

I have a friend that makes the most amazing stuffed shells.

She made them for me years ago and when I complimented them she told me the recipe was on the noodle box. The recipe is there but I could never get mine to taste like hers!

In remembering those shells and wanting to branch out from linguine noodles and sauces I searched for a vegan recipe.

Here's the recipe I used when I was planning my dish.

Ingredients
1 16ox pkg of extra firm tofu
dried basil to taste
dried oregano to taste
garlic powder to taste

tofu mixture

(too lazy to cut up fresh garlic today!)
salt to taste
black pepper to taste
chopped fresh parsley (about a handful)
2 8oz can of organic diced tomatoes with Italian seasoning
1 box of vegan jumbo shells (check ingredients carefully)
1 bag of vegan shredded mozzarella

Directions
Add the tofu, dried spices, salt, pepper, and chopped parsley to a mixing bowl. Stir together until tofu is broken up and spices are incorporated evenly.

Pour 1 can of tomatoes in the bottom of a baking dish.

Stuff shells with tofu mixture.

stuffed!

Cover shells with the other can of tomatoes.

You can precook the shells if you want but as long as you cover them very well with sauce they will cook fully in the oven and you'll save some time and effort.

Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.

Sprinkle with vegan mozzarella and bake for another 5 minutes or so to melt the cheese.


I was happy with the way this recipe turned out.

straight from the oven to my belly

If you don't eat shells like this often you might be fooled. However, if stuffed shells are your favorite dish you'll likely notice the textural difference between the tofu and the more traditional ricotta filling.

I'll certainly make these again when I'm craving a stuffed pasta.

Homemade Pasta and Pesto

The Carnivore and I took a once-in-a-lifetime type of trip to Europe last summer. Over four weeks we went on a 7 day Mediterranean cruise and spent time in Paris, Nice, Rome, Venice, and most importantly London, where he proposed.

Best. Proposal. Ever.

Quick Recap: I'm obsessed with London, Tower of London, Crown Jewels, "Are you jealous of the diamonds?," and the I got my own sparkly, amazingly perfect engagement ring. And, back to the food...

Our time in Italy sort of made us pasta snobs. I've only had one really decent bowl of pasta since in a French inspired cafe in Memphis. Random. I've wanted  to learn to make my own pasta since.

Enter another incredible feature of the juicer we recently bought. It will extrude 2 sizes of spaghetti, linguine, and fettuccine. Huge selling point due to the cost of the juicer.

And, since the last week of the month is "leftover week" I didn't have any fancy dinner to make and freeze so I decide to tackle making my own pasta for part of our special Sunday meal. Our favorite Italian dish was a pesto dish so that's where I decided to start.

Making the pasta took some trial and error to get the dough consistency right but was way easier than I thought it would be. I can't wait to try adding different juices and seasonings!

egg well in the flour

The Pasta

Ingredients: 2 cups flour, 2 eggs, 2 tbs olive oil, 2 tsp salt, and 8 tbs water

balls of pasta!

The Process: maybe 20 minutes to make 2 balls of pasta (6 servings). Then I let the dough balls rest for about 45 minutes. Feeding the dough through the juicer was very easy but took some coordination to pull the noddles, cut them, and get them in the boiling water all in one fluid motion.

The Pesto

the basil smelled SO GOOD!

Ingredients: 2 cups of living basil leaves, 5 cloves of raw garlic, nearly 2 ounces of raw pine nuts, and 1/2 cup of olive oil

The Process: washed and dried the basil, peeled the garlic, and emptied the pine nuts in to the food processor. added olive oil. I did this while the dough was resting. took about 15 minutes.

  

The Results

makes me want to lick the screen

A Roux, A Bechamel, A Mornay-Oh My an Amazing Mac and Cheese Dish!

I try to make one dish on Sundays that I can freeze and use all week for dinner. The Carnivore works 2nd shift right now and it makes packing his dinner easier.

Since this is the first week of transitioning our diet I tried to use up some things we had on hand (chicken breasts, broccoli, boxed pasta, flour, butter) with some amazing, real Sharp Cheddar and Gouda I from the store.

The plan was to make a homemade mac and cheese casserole that included chicken and broccoli to take it from a side dish to an entree. I served it with a spinach salad that I dressed up with chopped prunes, orange baby bell peppers, rosemary flavored Marcona almonds and a homemade balsamic vinaigrette.

For those of you that need motivation to stick with this post and proof something good happened, here's  the final plate:

Marcona almonds are the BEST almonds in the world and it has taken all my will power this week not to demolish the entire bag. I bet I could do it in 3 minutes flat.

Proof that both are still in the pantry on Wednesday

And, yes, I put prunes in a salad. I'm really 80 on the inside. I eat them as snacks and put them in meals whenever I can. Judge if you want but prunes are where it's at.

I've never made a cheese sauce from scratch and had no idea what I was getting in to. I looked up a few recipes online and took ideas from different sources- which is how I pretty much figure out how to cook anything these days.

From start to finish the sauce took about 30 minutes and went from a roux (butter and flour) to a bechamel (add warm milk) to a mornay (plus cheese, salt, spices).

Let's just say my whisk got a good work out.

I ended up with an unbelievably rich and creamy cheddar sauce that was thick enough to stay on the back of a spoon. It tasted amazing. I could have eaten the entire pan of sauce with a spoon and been happy with life.

I looked the process up after the dish was complete because I couldn't believe a mac and cheese sauce really needed all that work. Somehow I went in to it thinking that I could dump shredded cheese in to milk and magic would happen.

I covered the other ingredients, including the diced gouda because I wanted the cheese flavors to stay separate, with the sauce, topped with panko bread crumbs, and baked it in the oven. The final result:

The Carnivore went back for seconds. And I'll never by boxed or frozen mac and cheese again.