pasta, lentils, and artichoke hearts

I love making this pretty and simple pasta dish for dinner parties, or for just me and my roommate to have tons of leftovers. The recipe that follows makes 4 - 6 servings, and is adapted from Moosewood Low-Fat Favorites. I like to use French lentils, which hold their shape better than other varieties. Red lentils would also be pretty.

PASTA, LENTILS, AND ARTICHOKE HEARTS

1 cup dry red lentils (3 cups cooked)
3 cups water
1 tsp olive oil
2 onions, diced
5 large garlic cloves, pressed or minced
2 tsps grond cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
3 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
2 cups canned diced tomatoes (18oz can), liquid reserved
1 1/2 cups quartered artichokes (9oz package frozen or 15oz can)
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1 lb farfalle, rotini, or spirali
salt and pepper to taste
1 bunch parsley, chopped, for garnish (optional) 

Bring the lentils and water to a boil in a saucepan. Lower the heat, cover, and simmer for 15 to 20 mintues, until the lentils are tender.

While the lentils cook, heat the olive oil in a separate pan (a saucepan, not a frying pan). Add the onions and saute on medium heat until golden. Add the garlic, cumin, and coriander and cook for a couple minute mires, stirring frequently. Add the lemon juice, tomatoes, artichoke hearts, and crushed pepper and simmer on low heat for about 10 minutes. By now, the lentils should be done cooking. Drain them and add them to the tomato and artichoke heart mixture. Simmer for 10 minutes or so more.

Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to a boil and cook the pasta until al dente. Drain the pasta and transfer it to a serving bowl. Top it with the lentil and artichoke heart sauce, add salt and pepper to taste, sprinkle with parsley, if using, and serve immediately.

creamy vegan pesto, with white beans and braised garlic

Like I promised, here's my pesto recipe! It's almost the same pesto as in my post about white bean pesto and heirloom tomato salad stacks, but it's a complicated (and delicious!) enough recipe that it deserves its own post. (Also, the pictures in that post, other than the tomatoes, leave much to be desired.) 

I depleted my basil plants to make this pesto, and it was worth it! (Especially since they seem to be recovering.) I put it on pizza: I made the same slow-rise crust, spread the pesto on, covered in more tiny, sliced grape tomatoes, and baked. YUM. 

Braising the garlic is optional, as are the herbs, though if you have time, and fresh herbs on hand, it's worth it. Sautéing the garlic so there's not 1-2 heads of raw garlic in the pesto would be a good idea, or leave it out. (And anyway, when basil and pine nuts are pureed together, I find it difficult to go wrong!) 

Other than the braising, this recipe is fast and rewarding. It's recipes like this that make me so, so glad to have a food processor. (There was one time I picked over 3 full grocery-sized bags of basil from my CSA, then spent over 3 hours chopping by hand, and nearly destroyed my computer in the process. Long story.) 

 CREAMY VEGAN PESTO WITH WHITE BEANS AND BRAISED GARLIC

Stovetop-Braised garlic:

1-2 heads garlic 

1 tsp minced fresh rosemary 

1 tsp minced fresh thyme

olive oil

White Bean Pesto: 

1 cup cooked white beans

stovetop-braised garlic, above

2 tsp minced garlic (in addition to the braised above) 

2 - 3 cups fresh basil, or as much as possible!

a handful of chives, snipped

1/4 - 1/3 cup pine nuts

1/4 - 1/3 cup water 

2 -3 tbsp olive oil (optional) 

1 tsp ground pepper

1 tsp sea salt 

To prepare the garlic: Trim the root and top ends of the garlic head. Separate the cloves, but don't remove the peels. Heat a tablespoon or so of olive oil in a frying pan (cast iron works best) to almost smoking point, then turn down heat as low as possible. Add the garlic, skin and all, to the pan. Roll the cloves in the olive oil and cover the pan. Cook for about 5 minutes. Then check the garlic: it should be light brown and smell absolutely amazing. Shake the pan to turn the cloves. Cover the pan and cook for another 5 minutes. After this, add the rosemary and thyme, then leave the lid off as you carefully stir the garlic for another 5 minutes. The skins should be falling off as you stir, and be incredibly fragrant. 

If not braising, chop the garlic roughly (it'll end up being pureed anyway) and saute with the herbs, if using, until golden. 

To make the pesto: In a blender or food processor, combine the beans, the braised garlic, minced garlic, basil, chives, pine nuts, water, oil (if using), pepper, and salt and blend until smooth. 

road trip pasta salad

I made this huge batch of pasta salad for a short road trip we went on recently. I didn't want a sandwich that would just get mushy, not that I'm a huge fan of sandwiches to begin with. This pasta salad was filling, hearty, and a whole meal in one dish. Everyone has their own ideas about what goes in pasta salad, so I won't really post a recipe, just the ingredients I used and roughly how I put it together.

I was also more or less following this guide to perfect pasta salad. These are sort of my favorite pasta-related ingredients, but I was also aiming for a combination that would be both colorful and briny. 

ROAD TRIP PASTA SALAD

1 pound rotini, cooked to package instructions, drained but not rinsed

1 pound mushrooms, sliced 

1 basket yellow grape tomatoes, diced

1 cup canned chickpeas, rinsed 

a few handfuls baby spinach, ripped or roughly chopped into bite-sized pieces

1-2 cans artichoke hearts, quartered

a couple red bell peppers, sliced

1 can black olives, sliced

1/4 - 1/2 cup capers

extra-virgin olive oil 

white vinegar 

lemon juice 

red pepper flakes 

black pepper 

salt

various herbs, like dried basil, oregano, tarragon

So, I don't like raw tomatoes, and I don't really like raw mushrooms either. This is what I did: while the pasta was cooking, the tomatoes and mushrooms were the first things I sliced. Then I marinated them in what would pretty much be the same dressing the whole salad would be in: oil, a little bit of vinegar, a ton of lemon juice, red pepper flakes, black pepper, a pinch of salt, dried basil, and tarragon. Then, an hour or two later, after everything else was already mixed together, I tossed the mushrooms and tomatoes into a pan and cooked them a bit. (Actually, as you can see in the pictures, I overcooked them a bit! But generally, I try to just barely cook them so they're tender and awesome.) Once they cooled, I added them to the rest of the salad. 

The rest of the salad is pretty standard. Once the pasta cooled, I mixed in the raw ingredients. I added oil, vinegar, and seasonings gradually, until they tasted about how I wanted them. I used a TON of lemon juice, more than I did vinegar. Also, I try to avoid using balsamic vinegar; even though I love vinaigrettes, balsamic vinegar will make the whole thing brown and kind of sad-looking. I stopped a little before it was as flavorful as I wanted it, since everything would be marinating in each other's juices for a couple days in the fridge. 

first food processor experience: vegan yumyum tomato basil cream pasta

I used my food processor for the first time ever on this delicious super quick tomato basil cream pasta. (The photo is by vegan yum yum as well, she has a gorgeous flickr account with photos of her food.) And you guys? I love having a food processor. This is one of those things that before I had a food processor, was not super quick. (It still would've been delicious.) 

pasta with vegan sausage and greens

I had some Italian-sausage-style tofurkey sausages leftover from when my father decided he wanted to grill me something meat-like, so I whipped up a vegan version of this quick dinner recipe from the kitchn, simply substituting the vegan sausage for the meat sausage and leaving out the parmesan. Next time I think I'll try a bit of nutritional yeast as well. 

pasta with handfuls of herbs

When I have access to lots of herbs, this dish is a standby of mine. It's based on a recipe in Deborah Madison's the Savory Way, though much of the fun of it is playing around. This is what Madison has to say about this recipe:

A pasta for summer, when herbs are most prolific. Handfuls of herbs, at least a couple from fairly small hands, are what it takes.... If you grow herbs, you can make this pasta easily and frequently, varying it each time according to fancy or what is coming into leaf or flower. If you don't, you can make a simpler version drawing on the herbs that supermarkets carry, basing the mixture perhaps on parsley and adding basil, marjoram, thyme, and a shallot or scallion. A few narrow slivers of lemon zest will provide the tang that the sorrel does. You'll need about a cup of chopped leaves in all.

PASTA WITH HANDFULS OF HERBS 

what I used:
12 regular or lemon thyme branches or a mixture
a couple dozen large parsley branches
4 sorrel leaves
6 basil leaves
celery greens from 1 bunch supermarket celery
1/2 of one onion and 1 clove garlic, finely diced
2 to 3 tablespoons olive oil 
1 tablespoon more oil for sauteing 
2 to 3 tablespoons earch balance
1/2 cup wheat germ 
salt
pepper
dried marjoram
8 to 10 ounces pasta

note: Madison called for 6 fresh marjoram branches, 3 lovage leaves, bread crumbs instead of wheat germ, half as much parsley, 2 small shallots instead of my onion-garlic combo, and no basil or celery leaves. I used the celery leaves since I didn't have lovage. she didn't call for cooking the shallots, but I don't like the taste of raw onion so I cooked it a bit with the wheat germ. 

chop the herbs fairly fine, but leave some texture. put the herbs into a bowl with the 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil and 2-3 tablespoons of earth balance and set aside.

bring a pot of water to boil for the pasta. while it's heating, heat the sauteing oil in a frying pan, add the onion, garlic, and wheat germ. cook until the wheat germ is warm and crispy, the onion is getting transparent, and the garlic is getting golden. mix into the herb mixture.

when the water boils, salt to taste and add the pasta. cook until al dente. drain or scoop it out of the pot and add it to the bowl with the herbs, oil, butter, and wheat germ. season generously with pepper and toss well.