Thursday, February 15, 2007

Pasta, Pancakes & Pasta Casserole

Hee hee, a bit of a carb-y post! Tasty, though! Also, I finally responded to all your nice comments from the last post! :)

A couple of nights ago, I proposed making an old favorite of mine: "Pasta con aglio i olio" - or pasta with garlic & olive oil. I usually add a big handful of fresh parseley too. Musty suggested adding some roasted butternut squash (his current favorite food). What a good idea it was!! YUM. Here's a basic recipe:

Roast up the equiv of about 1.5 c of butternut squash
(tiny bit of oil, 450 degrees, 20 min, flip over/stir, 20-25 min more) Chop up in bits

Cook about 3/4 lb of pasta.

While the water is boiling, and the pasta is cooking... mince up 4-5 garlic cloves (depending on your garlic preferences) and saute it on medium heat in 1 or 2 T of good quality olive oil. Saute until golden. Add about 1/2 tsp salt. When the pasta is done, mix it up with the olive oil-garlic-salt mix. Then, add in the chopped up butternut squash bits. Add a handful of chopped up fresh parseley. Eat and enjoy!!


For Valentine's Day we had pancakes for lunch. Yummy treat! I used a nice recipe veganized from "Mollie Katzen's Sunlight Cafe."

Tonight I made a fun dish, which I actually made up! Unlike all you clever bloggers out there, I don't make up my own dishes too often. I was a bit inspired by Jess over at Get Sconed. I chopped up a few little zucchini, an onion, a few garlic cloves, a red bell pepper, and a huge bag of fresh spinach from the farmer's market. I cooked up some macaroni noodles, and meanwhile, I sauteed up the onion & garlic, then added the zukes & peppers, then the spinach. I mixed up the noodles and veggie mix... then I added about 1/2 c of some "tofu ricotta" I had stored in the freezer (from Real Food Daily cookbook), some pine nuts, & about 1/2 a Jar of jarred tomato sauce. I spread it all into a casserole dish, sprinkled it with breadcrumbs & baked it at 375 for about 25 min or so.

I guess it sort of looks like a big bowl of slop, but Oh wow, it was great!!! I ate two big bowls of it. Not bad for a made up "use-up-what's-in-the-fridge-dinner"!

Hope you're all doing well. :)

7 comments:

  1. Ooh, I love pasta but I don't eat it that often because I can never think of what to do with it besides spaghetti with red sauce.... You've given me two new great ideas now!

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  2. My favorite meals are often the least pretty. Last night's for example was a bowl of "hash"- new potatoes, collard greens, mushrooms, onions and veg chikn strips topped with chickpea gravy. So satisfying.

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  3. Anonymous9:38 AM

    That's my kind of post! I love simple pastas... and pancakes too. And coming up with something fun based on what you need to unload from your fridge is always fun too.

    I've gotten some good ideas from Sunlight Cafe in the past - I should dig it out again. It's not all that vegan but still it can be helpful to break out of the cereal-for-breakfast-every-day rut

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  4. Mmmm I love your carby post! A big pasta casserole sounds great right about now.

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  5. Your pastas look great, but I really can't get over how perfect those pancakes look - wow!

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  6. I've always loved my carbs...this post is one after my own heart--and stomach.

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