Vegan Dinner Recipe: Half hour bolognaise spectacular

Hey pasta, what would I do without you?

Cry, probably.

Anyway, I had the most ridiculous amount of stuff to do today. What I mean is, I had to write an essay and do a whole load of editing, so of course I also baked some goodies (recipe will be forthcoming) and cleaned the entire house. Including the shower. Ugh.

The good news is, the house is SPAHKLING. But I was running short on time to prepare dinner, because I'm going out tonight. So pasta it was, with whatever I could find in the fridge.



It's like a guilty pleasure, because I'm like, oh no, I've run out of time, we'll HAVE TO HAVE PASTA, and the house members are like, oh NO, that's TERRIBLE, and then himself says "can you make extra so I can have some for tomorrow as well?"

And there you have it, and here it is. This recipe serves four, for sure.

Ingredients:

500g pasta, I like some big macaroni or penne or spirals for this recipe
Two handfuls of rock salt for the pasta water

A splash of grapeseed oil
an onion, diced
Three or four cloves of garlic, chopped (I love garlic. Go less if it scares you.)
One or two carrots, grated
Half a zucchini, grated
Three to five mushrooms, sliced (I didn't have mushrooms! Devastated! But this is what I would have done had I had them.)
Two tins of diced tomato
A teaspoon of salt
A teaspoon of brown sugar
A squirt of lemon juice
About three quarters of a cup of TVP
A handful of torn basil leaves

Okay. Ready?

Put on the pasta water to boil.

In the meantime, heat your oil on low to medium and throw in the onions and garlic.

Cook while you are grating your zucchini and carrot, and chopping your imaginary mushrooms (sniff!)

Cook on your low to medium heat until the carrot and zucchini starts to wilt and your mushrooms are starting to brown, then add both cans of tomato and a little bit of water (I like to rinse the cans out and pour in the water). Stir in the salt, sugar, and lemon juice.

Bring the mix to the boil. In the mean time, your pasta water should be boiling. Add two handfuls of rock salt and throw in the packet of pasta, give it a stir, and look at the clock, you want to time ten minutes.

Add your TVP and the torn basil to the tomato mix.

Turn the heat down a little and put a lid on the pan with the tomato mix. Ten minutes will be enough time for the TVP to absorb enough liquid.

Once your pasta is cooked, drain it. Check your TVP mix, it should look like this:

Mince-y! Stir in the pasta. Serve. Be relieved that you've fed the house in less than half an hour.

Boom.