Quick and Easy Pasta

I had great plans for getting on here over the past few weeks with recipes to share, honest I did.  However, as life sometimes goes, nothing really panned out how it should.  The recipes either went slightly wrong or the end effect was not quite as delicious as the picture had you believe.

Enjoying the garden in lieu of jobs I should be doing!

Aside from that life took over again as we celebrated our youngest’s birthday, celebrated our youngest great nephew’s birthday, caught up with family and remembered my mum on the first anniversary of her death.  It has been a whirlwind of activities and emotions which has seen me tend to coast through each day rather than set a plan. Trying out new recipes wasn’t really high on the priority list though with an upcoming Infant Massage Course in Nov I was happy for the distract ….. and the tasting opportunities 🙂

So I thought that I would at least share something with you … a very quick and easy pasta salad dish which himself stole and copied from some restaurant many years ago.  It has transformed over the years as our eating habits have changed which is just the kind of recipes I love.  Now instead of regular pasta and feta we have plonked in GF pasta and tofu along with whatever mixture of veg, olives and tomatoes take our fancy.  It really is an easy one to do and great if you have to prepare a meal ahead of time as you can have it cold or warm and as everything is pretty much optional you can be creative and make it just how you and yours like.

Ready to serve

Stolen Pasta Delight

• Packet of Fusilli – GF or regular
• Red onion
• Capiscum
• Tofu (can replace with feta and add in last)
• Fresh tomatoes  (chopped into large cubes)
• Olives
• Olive oil (for cooking in and drizzling on afterwards if you wish)
• Zucchini (chopped)
• Mushrooms
• Anything else you want to pop in 🙂
• Fresh basil leaves
• Dried Italian Herb Mix

-Boil the pasta until it is el dente, strain and leave to cool

-Fry up the onion, mushrooms, capsicum and zucchini until they are close to being s

-Add in the  fresh tomatoes and tofu with a little bit of Dried Italian Herb mix and continue to fry off until you can see the tomato is cooked.

-Remove from the heat and blend gently with the pasta and other ingredients (olives, sun dried tomatoes, feta etc).

-Sprinkle with fresh chopped basil leaves and drizzle a bit more oil on if you wish.

-Enjoy

Hope this find you happy, healthy and enjoying each day as it comes.

Arohanui

Y

www.becominghealthy.co.nz

GF, Vegan Lasagne

The cold, wet weather has started, daylight savings has ended and the comfort foods are being sought out!  Himself has had a bit of a fascination with Garfield over the last year and we have been searching loads of charity shops for Garfield bits and pieces to help his need to create a ‘collection’ however one of the things that stands out in most of the books is Garfield’s love of lasagne.  This has brought up quite a lot of discussion as we had never had it … even when there were more meat eaters … and themselves have been left wondering what all the fuss is about.

 

Then the other week at a Maths Club shared meal lasagne (the meat version) appeared on the menu and herself finally got to sample it.  She was smitten and loads more discussion about why Garfield loved it so much occurred which then brought up the next question ‘how could create a GF, vegan version to suit the whole family?’.

We already had a ‘tince’ (tofu and onion mashed into a tomato sauce) which himself had created for his tince pie and then for our spaghetti tofunaise.  So it was really just working out how to get a good white sauce to create layers for a vegan lasagne after we spotted some gluten free and vegan lasagne sheets in the local supermarket.

We have made white sauces before however due to us mainly having rice milk in the bus the sauce has still been quite sweet. On our initial attempt we did try coconut and almond milk thinking this may help it be more savoury along with some nutritional yeast however it was still not quite right. In the end it was Soy milk that did the trick and gave us a good white/cheese sauce …… it has been a while since I tried ‘proper’ cheese sauce so I guess it is down to personal taste here though we did get our meat eaters approval so it can’t of been too far off!

Anyway the end result was a very comforting and filling meal which the whole whānau (family) …vegans and meat eaters alike …. enjoyed.  Below is the basic recipe we used however we have also layered in spinach leaves and/or other veg like grated carrot or courgette.  Whatever tickles your fancy and leaves you feeling satisfied will work with this easy recipe.  I’ve tried my best to give you accurate measurements of ingredients where I can however as you know (if you follow my blog) I’m a bit of an experimenter and a ‘chuck it in’ kind of cook …… so it gives you a chance to play 🙂

Vegan Lasagne

• GF pasta sheets (or regular if this is a necessity)
• Vegan cheese (we used Veesy Vegan cheese as it is a softens a bit more like melted cheese)

‘Meat’ section

• Tofu (at least 300gm size block)
• Onion
• Garlic
• Tomato paste
• Powdered Veg stock or herbs
• Mushroom (optional)

-Fry off the chopped onion, mushroom and garlic until soften

-Add in diced tofu and powdered veg stock and or herbs to flavour and stir as it cooks a little

– Add in enough tomato paste and water to cover the tofu and cook over a low heat briefly

-Turn off the heat and mash the tofu mix.

-Add more tomato paste and/or water if needed to create a good consistency for layering into the lasagne (not too dry and not too wet)

‘Cheese sauce’ section

• 2TB coconut oil
• 2TB GF flour (I used Edmonds self raising GF flour)
• 1 C soy milk
• 1/4 C nutritional yeast
• salt and pepper to taste

-Melt the coconut oil and take off the heat to mix in the flour

-When the oil and flour are a smooth paste then add the milk and mix well (all off the heat)

– Stirring constantly put the sauce back on the heat and continue cooking, and stirring, until it thickens up.

-Take off the heat and add in the nutritional yeast and stir well.

-Add more soy milk, if you wish, to get the sauce to a good consistency, ensuring there is enough of it for all the layers.

Ready to layer up

Putting it together section

1. -Layer the bottom of an ovenproof dish with pasta
2. -Cover the pasta with a layer of tofu mix
3. -Cover the tofu with a few slices of cheese. You can also layer in your spinach etc here if you wish.
4. -Cover the cheese with white sauce

-Repeat steps 1-4 until you get near the top of your ovenproof dish.

-Finish off with a layer pasta with tofu mix (or just tom paste if you’re running low of tofu mix) on top and slices of cheese at the very top.

-Bake in the oven for at around 30 mins at 180-200C

-Enjoy with salad or other veg as you wish 😉

Ready to eat

Hope this finds you enjoying warm, hearty meals with those you love.

Arohanui

Y

www.becominghealthy.co.nz

Simple Summer Salad

I’m sitting here in my lounge, kids happily playing in the shade, and I’m feeling less than enthused about having to do anything more than sit! The weather here has been amazing and the kinds of temperatures where I just want to relax and do nothing least of all cook tea!  It is times like this when I want to eat something quick, simple and ….. well cold!

I had planned to be sharing another recipe here however as it isn’t quite right – I’ve almost got the recipe tasting good enough to share but at the moment we are a bit too chocolate cup-caked out to keep perfecting it in time for this post 🙂 – I thought I would share one of my quick and easy Summer Salads with you.  Himself actually created the original of Summer Salad after tasting something at a restaurant and then me being me …. I have swiped his recipe and adapted it to my liking 🙂

Not the cheapest GF pasta but the best I’ve tried by far!

This can be adapted however you like really by adding or deleting whatever takes your fancy. The sky is the limit!! The recipe below is what I do which is a gluten free, diary free version. I’m also currently leaving out the sun-dried tomatoes (see last week’s post for details) and it is still yum.  This feeds a family of 4 with extras.

Simple Summer Salad

Ingredients:

• Ceres Quinoa Rice pasta (See image above)
• Onion and garlic if you wish
• Mushrooms
• Sun-dried tomatoes
• Courgettes
• Shrimp
• Goats Feta
• Olives

– Slice up and fry the onion, mushrooms, courgettes and shrimp until they are how you like them – lightly fried or fried until soft- and allow to cool.

-Boil the pasta and either leave to cool or rinse under cold water to cool.

-Slice up the sun-dried tomatoes along with dicing the Goat’s Feta and add to the cold pasta with the olives

-Once the fried vegetables and shrimp are cool enough that it won’t melt the feta to pieces add everything together. Then pop into the fridge until ready to serve.

-When you are ready to serve lightly drizzle some of the oil from the sun-dried tomatoes or olive oil onto the salad and mix around to ‘freshen’ it up.

-Enjoy 🙂

Hope this finds you enjoying a relaxing evening with simple yet wholesome fare or at least planning to.

Arohanui

Y

www.becominghealthy.co.nz