Pasta and soup
Comfort food that’s reasonably healthy
This is a day late, because… well. This is a food space. Not that food isn’t political. Really, everything is, and food is particularly political since our political and economic systems are determined to not provide enough nutritious food to everyone. Since our political and economic systems subsidise megalithic ‘farming’ conglomerates and not smaller farmers. Since our political and economic systems bow down before billionaires and shareholders, rather than the people working in the supermarkets and on the farms, and in the markets. Since our political and economic systems prioritise factory farming of animals above sustainable farming of plant protein.
(Oh look, apparently this can be a political space, after all. But that’s all I’m going to say here. I may well have a little – or large – rant over on Illustrated Life at the weekend. Or not.)
The weather is finally getting a bit cooler and, more importantly, the days are drawing in and I am digging deeply into hibernation mode. I am turning down social engagements, and turning instead to the cosy blankets on the sofa and books and comfort TV (Gilmore Girls, anyone? I feel Virgin River calling, as well. And maybe This is Us.)
And with that hibernation mode comes comfort food. Mashed or baked potatoes… Roasted root vegetables… Lots of pasta… And all the soup!
Here are a couple of dishes I made this week which I particularly enjoyed. Both fairly simple, though one requires a good blender. I recently got a Ninja and I love it, but I realised I should have researched a bit more and got one that you can put hot food in as well as cold, because then I could use it to whizz up soups and sauces. But a stick blender will work for a lot of those – and that’s what I tend to use for my soups (the ones I whizz up).
This is different to my pasta primavera (mentioned briefly here), but does have some similarities. For this, though, I was going for something a bit more mac & cheese adjacent (but healthier, and vegan!); always a classic comfort food for me. It was delicious, but I don’t think it was hugely mac & cheesesque.
1 cup of cashew nuts, soaked for a few hours in 3 cups of water (I don’t think the soaking is essential, especially with a very good blender, but I also think it does help soften them a bit)
big bunch of herbs (around 100g) (I used parsley and also about a quarter of a packet of rocket that needed using up, but it would work – and give slightly different flavours – with others, such as basil, tarragon, chervil and even coriander)
4 large garlic cloves (we have been getting some lovely big Spanish garlic from Ocado recently and the cloves are about twice the size of the smaller garlic we used to get, and I think, more flavoursome – so use 8 cloves if you only have smaller garlic)
3 jalapeno chilis (this was what I had in the fridge – ordinary green chilis would be fine, and so would red, but they don’t quite fit the green theme)
2 tablespoons of miso paste (the one that was open in the fridge was the red miso, but I would probably go with white miso if I’d had both)
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (I’ve mentioned before, I think, that we get a big tin of Greek EVOO from the market, which is very nice and I like to spend money on good olive oil, though am very aware I could be spending a huge amount more; use whatever type you like and can afford)
1 250ml carton of soy cream (we use Alpro, but you could substitute with vegan yoghurt or other vegan creams, and silken tofu could work, too)
Another 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
A mixture of green and white vegetables (I used tenderstem brocolli, 2 large courgettes, 1 small cauliflower and 1 onion; you could use whatever green veg you happen to have on hand or need to use up, including asparagus, savoy cabbage, green beans, peas, edamame beans, spinach, kale, cavalo nero, and so on)
Pasta (I used just over 250g and it made enough for about 5 bowls; I used fusilli, but this one would work with plenty of types of pasta, so just go with whatever you have available and feel like)
Whizz up all the ingredients except the last three in a good blender.
Heat the other 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large sauté pan (or wok or casserole, or just a large saucepan would work).
Chop the onion and heat it on a low heat while you cut up the other vegetables and add them gradually as you cut them up.
Once they’re all in the pan, cook for around 10 minutes on a low to medium heat.
Put a large pan full of water on to boil.
Add the sauce that you blended earlier to the vegetables and, once it starts to bubble slightly, turn it down to simmer.
When the water is boiling, add the pasta and cook according to the instructions.
While the pasta’s cooking taste the sauce and add salt if it needs it. Add water (use some of the pasta water) if it needs thinning, or turn the heat up a bit to reduce it if it’s too thin.
Once the pasta is cooked, drain and mix well with the sauce.
I think this would work really well as a pasta bake, as well. If you want to try that, I’d go with a thinner sauce and cook the pasta less so it can cook more in the oven and then I’d put it all in an oven-proof dish and top with breadcrumbs, ground almonds, nutritional yeast and a bit of fat of some kind (a bit of olive oil could work, or mix with some vegan margarine or maybe even coconut oil; you don’t need much, but it will help it give a crispier topping; you could also add some finely chopped nuts and seeds for more crunch and also some extra protein).
Roasted carrot and butter bean soup
The other meal I threw together this week and enjoyed (and was also using up some vegetables) was a roasted carrot soup. Normally I would go with carrot and coriander, but we didn’t have any coriander. I cut up all the carrots in the fridge (I think there were probably around 500g, but I didn’t weigh them) into large chunks and put them in a lasagne dish (any big oven-proof dish would work, of course). I added four cloves of garlic and two red chilis and a few glugs of olive oil (maybe two or three tablespoons) and then cooked on the middle shelf at 150C for a couple of hours. And then I added them to a saucepan with miso paste, a tin of butter beans, and about 1 litre of vegetable stock (kallo veg cubes) and heated it for about an hour. I added some vegan kefir and some almond milk and then whizzed it all up with the stick blender and ate with some wholemeal toast spread with some of the new vegan Lurpak (I am very impressed with this, and have fully swapped out my non-vegan spreadable Lurpak on all toast and bread this week and it’s going to go on my must have in the fridge list). This ended up very thick (I couldn’t just drink it from a mug and needed a spoon), so if I made it again, I’d probably add a bit more stock and maybe a bit more almond milk to thin it down.
As always, let me know if you make any of the recipes!
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