Fusilli Pasta

Don’t you love it when you don’t feel like cooking and you go to the fridge and there’s leftovers??!

It’s the best!

Yesterday we cooked mini pies with a hearty, vegan ‘meaty’ sauce of mushrooms & lentils. We had lots of leftover pie filling and so for a quick dinner we put on a pot of fusilli pasta and warmed the meat sauce, combined it and served with fresh flat leaf parsley and a dollop of cashew cheese.

SO GOOD!

(And it was on the table in 15 min)

If you missed our mini pie recipe, I’ll copy & paste the filling here for you to make for your pasta. For meaty style sauces we always use penne or fusilli, but you can use any pasta cut you like.

Pasta Sauce

1 onion, diced

3-4 cloves of garlic, grated

2-3 sprigs of rosemary, finely chopped

1 handful of flat leaf parsley, finely chopped

1 handful of sage, finely chopped

1 medium carrot, diced

1/2 cup of peas

1 tin of lentils, strained & rinsed

1 cup of soy protein (Available at the supermarket in the health food isle. Prepare according to packet instructions).

2 stock cubes

2 cups of water

1 knob of butter (Nuttelex)

1 tbsp tomato paste

1 tbsp of corn flour

Good splash of red wine

A few cracks of salt (& pepper if your kids won’t protest 🙄)

1 cap of liquid smoke (Available at BBQ’s Galore 😄 and other camping places. Use it like vanilla essence, just a little).

If you don’t have liquid smoke you can use a squeeze of smokey BBQ sauce.

Method

Put water for the pasta on the stove and begin your sauce while you wait for it to boil.

Place a pan on high heat and add 1 cup of water and 1 stock cube. When bubbling, add the onion & garlic and cook down for a few minutes.

Add the diced carrot, mushrooms, tomato paste, herbs & a knob of Nuttelex. Stir and continue to fry for a few minutes before adding the corn flour and stirring through.

Cook the flour for a further minute.

Add the rest of the stock, the lentils, and the peas, then place the lid on and allow to boil before turning down to a simmer for 10 min.

Add the pasta to your boiling pot & note the time so you don’t overcook it. We cook with gluten free pasta which cooks faster than wheat pasta so I’m always checking on it make sure I don’t overcook it.

Stir the soy protein through the sauce & the last stock cube and return the lid for 5 minutes before adding a good splash of wine, and salt & pepper to taste.

When your pasta is cooked take it off the heat and drain it. The pasta should be almost chewy to bite into, and not mushy at all.

Add the pasta to the sauce, a few scoops at a time so ensure you get the right sauce to pasta ratio. You don’t want it to be dry if you’ve added too much pasta.

Serve right away, topped with fresh chopped parsley & dollop of cashew cheese. (I took the picture before I added the cashew cheese).

Cashew Cheese

2 cups of raw cashews, no need to soak. (Roasted cashews work fine as well).

3 tbspn nutritional yeast (Available at the supermarket in the health food isle).

1/2 veggie stock cube

2 gloves of garlic, whole

salt to taste (3 or 4 good cracks from the grinder).

Plant milk of choice (We use soy).

Squeeze of lime

Method

Add ingredients to a stick blender or bullet blender.

Add soy milk until just covering the ingredients.

Blend well.

You can add the milk a little at a time, stopping just below the nuts and start blending, then slowly add a little more, and then a little more until you reach the desired consistency. It should be completely smooth, and just a little looser than hummus.

Yum! The kids will love this one.