Tomato Walnut Spinach Pasta

My mentor from childhood went vegan. I'm such an awful pupil that I didn't realize that she was vegetarian till a few months ago and last week she broke it to me that she went vegan. I didn't know what to say; more importantly I didn't know what to feed her. She assures me that she comes equipped with her own food, but in an Italian household that's unacceptable. You must feed everyone.

So I set off to troll the internet and figure out what I could make. I found this neat little dish and decided to use Marc as a guinea pig. I don't think he minded.

Ingredients

1 28oz can of crushed tomatoes

Olive oil

1 cup onion, diced

3 cloves of garlic, minced

1 tsp oregano

1 tsp kosher salt

1 tsp black pepper

1 tsp dried basil

2 large handfuls of spinach, chopped roughly

1/2 cup walnuts, chopped roughly

Pasta*

Procedures:

1. In a large skillet heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil over low-medium heat

2. Sweat garlic and onions in pan (appox 5 min)

3. Add oregano, salt, and pepper

4. Stir well

5. Add tomatoes and basil, then stir

6. Bring to a boil and then reduce to simmer on low for 5 minutes

7. Start cooking pasta per directions on the box

8. Stir in walnuts and spinach

9. Cook 10 minutes 

10. Drain pasta

11. Combine and serve.

Pictures:

Sweating onions

Spices grouped together in the order they'll go in the pan.

After adding the oregano, salt, and pepper

Tomatos plopped in

After it all came together

Ta-Da! This is Marc's dish. It has cheese on top (Not very vegan)

And then we had some of this for dessert:

Overall it was really good. I think the spinach is really just there for nutritional value as it didn't contribute much to the flavor. Walnuts I'm pretty sure were for texture too as they also didn't add a whole lot flavor wise. I like experimenting with tomato sauce though. I'll need to tap my mom and get her recipe for the sauce she used to make.

*A note on the pasta and veganism: the pasta I'm familiar with is made with egg. I checked the box and the only listed ingredient was whole wheat flour with a note that it was made in a factory that uses soy and eggs, so I'm not sure if they used egg in it or not. Unless I've made it fresh without egg, I will assume it has egg in it.

Do you have vegetarian dishes you love? Have you ever tried to prepare foods for a vegan?

Chicken Broccoli Cheddar Soup and Almond Milk Ice Cream

Tonight was full of new stuff. We had a chicken, broccoli and cheddar soup for dinner, and for dessert, almond milk ice cream. Both were gambles since I hadn't made either before, but they turned out pretty good considering. The soup was really creamy and chock full of broccoli, which in short means it was delicious.

Ingredients:

1 cup onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

3 cups chicken broth

1 package of broccoli, chopped

2.5 cups milk (we used 2%)

1/3 cup flour

1/4 tsp pepper

8 oz cheddar cheese, sliced
2 chicken breasts, chopped to bite size pieces

Procedure:

1. Sweat onions and garlic in a non stick sauce pan over medium high heat

2. Add broth and broccoli

3. Bring to a boil then reduce to medium heat

4. Cook for 10 minutes
5. Fry chicken breasts in a separate pan 

6. In a separate bowl mix milk and cornstarch till well blended

7. Add to saucepan

8. Cook approximately 5 minutes or until it slightly thickens

9. Add pepper

10. Remove from heat and add cheese

11. Stir till it melts

12. Blend 1/3 of soup and return to pan.
13. Add chicken to soup.

14. Stir smooth and serve

Pictures!

Onions and garlic in pan

Adding broccoli and broth

Marc slicing up the cheese from a block

After adding the milk and cornstarch mixture

We used an immersion blender to blend some of it. Much easier than moving it back and forth between pan and blender.

For dessert I experimented with Almond Milk. It's super yummy by itself, so I wanted to see how it would work as a substitute for whole milk in ice cream. If you're unfamiliar with almond milk you can read more about it and how it compares to cow's milk here. Ice cream is really easy to make, so long as you have something with which to churn it. Lucky for us, my mother gifted us one for Christmas a few years back. Here's the recipe I used for this:

Ingredients

1.25 cups heavy cream

1 Tbsp vanilla extract

1 and 1/8 cup granulated sugar

1 1/2 cups almond milk

Procedure

1. Combine almond milk and sugar in a large bowl

2. Mix until sugar dissolves

3. Add in heavy cream and vanilla

4 Stir to combine

5. Add to ice cream maker and churn for 20-25 minutes until thickened

6. Freeze 

Pictures:

In the ice cream maker

After getting out of the ice cream maker, but before heading to the freezer

I tried to take a picture of it dished up for me this evening. Alas, after three attempts and none of them coming out good I gave up and ate my ice cream. It's really important to enjoy these things - especially when the wee one is in bed! The ice cream was awesome. It was creamy and tasty without feeling oily or greasy. Marc commented that things he would have changed included: putting more into his bowl and adding nuts as a mix-in to the ice cream. I'll take those as some good criticisms!

Have you ever used almond milk? Would you try it?