EgglessCooking.com | Eggless Recipes | Eggless Baking » whole wheat penne

Vegan Pasta with Creamy (Tofu) Tomato Sauce

Madhuram — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 23:22:17 +0000

Vegan and creamy? Sounds like an oxymoron right? The secret to the creaminess is “silken tofu”. It’s pureed and mixed with regular pasta sauce and is topped over the pasta and steamed vegetables. This recipe is from the book Vegetarian Times Fast and Easy. I had copied it a long time back. As soon as I came to know about Vaishali’s It’s a Vegan World – Italian event, this dish came to my mind.

Those who have not tasted tofu before or having doubts about how it would taste in a sauce, you can take my word on this one. I’m very sure that you will love this sauce and pasta dish. The sauce tastes nothing like tofu. You will not get any weird smell or funny after taste. Even my son who generally eats plain cooked pasta, did not mind the sauce this time. Now he has two favorite pasta sauces, the beet sauce and this one. For the beet sauce I had used ricotta cheese to get the creaminess, but this one tasted as good as the beet sauce. We also did not miss the white pasta. I think the sauce even made the whole wheat penne to taste better.

Unused portion of tofu has to be stored in an air tight container in the refrigerator and should be used within 2-3 days. Don’t know what to do with the balance tofu? Check out here for other silken tofu recipes.

Ingredients

Uncooked penne, whole wheat 2 cups

Broccoli 4 cups

Silken Tofu 1/2 cup

Pasta Sauce (I used Preggos Heart Smart Italian Sauce) 1 and 1/2 cup

Salt as per taste

Ground pepper to taste

Procedure 1 Cook pasta as per package directions. Drain pasta, reserving 1/2-3/4 cup cooking water.

2 Steam broccoli until tender, about 6-7 minutes.

3 Puree the tofu in a food processor or blender, until smooth.

4 In a medium saucepan combine tofu, pasta sauce and enough reserved pasta water to create a creamy sauce. Cook sauce over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until heated through. Do not boil.

5 Season to taste with salt and pepper.

6 Transfer pasta to serving bowl; add broccoli, and toss to mix.

7 Top with sauce, and serve.

My Notes 1 I did not measure the servings exactly, but I’m sure it is enough to feed at least 3 adults.

2 The original recipe had 1/2 cup chopped black olives. If you want to use it, you should add it to the sauce while it’s heating.

3 If you are able to find reduced-fat firm silken tofu use it, because that was mentioned in the original recipe. I didn’t get it, so I have used Mori Nu’s regular silken tofu.

4 My son loves broccoli, so there was almost nothing left for the pasta when we sat down to eat. I had a pack of frozen Italian vegetables (broccoli, carrots and cauliflower). So I steamed it and tossed it with the pasta. That was good too.

Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

Curried Pasta and Vegetables – A Vegan Pasta Dish

Madhuram — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 11:55:40 +0000

Recently I have been seeing a lot of Indian/Indianized recipes in the Western cookbooks. The Curried Pasta and Vegetables is one such recipe from the book “1001 Low-Fat Vegetarian Recipes”. As the name suggests the book has 1001 low-fat vegetarian recipes; from appetizers to desserts the recipes are classified under 17 categories. I think I have to keep renewing this book in the library at least for 2-3 months.

Coming to this recipe, I adapted it from one of the recipes in the book. This is also a vegan pasta dish, without any cheese. Since the pasta gets it’s flavor from the curry sauce, the taste gets even better the next day. So you can prepare this on Sunday evening and have it for Monday’s dinner. The curry sauce can also be prepared ahead and it’s also versatile. Just throw in the vegetables you have at hand, the curry sauce and the pasta, you have a wholesome and nutritious meal ready in no time.

Ingredients

Vegetables of your choice – 2 cups (I used a combination of broccoli, cauliflower and carrots readily available in the frozen food section, 16oz pack)

Dry Pasta of your choice – 1 cup (I used Whole Wheat Penne)

Cilantro, chopped – 1/4 cup

Salt and pepper, to taste

Curry Sauce – Recipe follows

For the Curry Sauce

Olive Oil – 1 teaspoon

Onion, finely chopped – 1/4 cup

Garlic, minced – 4 cloves

All purpose flour – 2 tablespoons

Curry Powder – 2 teaspoons

Cayenne Pepper/Chilli Powder – 1/4 teaspoon

Vegetable Broth – 2 cups

Cornstarch – 1 tablespoon

Dry white wine or Water – 1/4 cup (I used water)

Salt and pepper, to taste.

Step-by-Step Procedure For Curry Sauce

1. Add 2 teaspoons olive oil to a medium saucepan; saute onion and garlic for 2 to 3 minutes.

2. Stir in flour, curry powder and chilli powder. Cook 1 minute, stirring.

3. Add broth and heat to boiling.

4. In a small vessel combine the cornstarch and water, until the cornstarch dissolves without forming any lumps. Add this mixture to the boiling broth and bring it to a boil, stirring, until thickened, about 1 minute. (Actually it took more than a minute for the mixture to thicken.)

5. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Assembling the Pasta

1. Steam the vegetables for 8-10 minutes if using frozen vegetables. If using fresh ones 6-8 minutes should be fine. Sprinkle some salt and toss the vegetables once, while steaming.

2. Cook pasta as per the instructions in the package. Drain it, reserving around 1/4 to 1/2 of the pasta cooked water.

3. Combine together the steamed veggies, pasta and the curry sauce. Check for seasoning and sprinkle cilantro.

This is my entry for the following events
1. Suganya’s Vegan Ventures
2. Mansi’s Vegetarian Thanksgiving

Colorful Lemon Pepper Pasta – A Diet Food

Madhuram — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 11:14:57 +0000

(Click on the image to see a bigger view)

Recently we had been to Olive Garden for the first time. I think they should rename it as “Salt Garden” instead. Right from the appetizer bread sticks to the main entree, every dish was very very salty. Even though I have to agree that we as a family have restricted our intake of salt and chillies/spicy stuff, the amount of salt used by the restaurant was way too high. The bread sticks, minestrone soup and the salad had the highest sodium content. When enquired the waitress about this, she told us that this is how it’s prepared everyday and it made us feel like we were from a strange planet. It really made us wonder if the average American is eating so much salt? But on the good side, the prices were definitely reasonable. With so much awareness about health in general and specific issues too, I cannot understand why they would use so much salt?

I don’t think that we will be going there again anytime soon for 2 reasons. a) it’s too far away from our place and b) we don’t want to consume so much salt. So in the meantime to satisfy my husband’s “pasta cravings”, I have to find pasta recipes which are easy to prepare, tasty and healthy as well. On the mission, I borrowed Betty Crocker’s Easy Everyday Vegetarian book from the library. This “Lemon Pepper Pasta” recipe caught my eye because it used very less ingredients and no cheese at all.

Since Divya’s Diet Foods event came to my mind, I decided to make it even more healthy by using whole wheat pasta instead of regular pasta and also reduced the amount of oil mentioned in the original recipe. Whole wheat pasta, asparagus and navy beans are rich in fiber, so we felt full very soon, ended up eating less. This dish is also protein rich, which again is key, when it comes to “diet food”. Whole wheat pasta does taste good, nothing like I dreaded and we also didn’t miss the cheese.

Ingredients

Penne pasta, uncooked – 2 cups (I used Nature’s Promise Organic Whole Wheat Penne)

Olive oil/vegetable oil – 2 tablespoons (1/4 cup of oil mentioned in the original recipe)

Orange bell pepper, medium – 1, chopped (red pepper used in the original recipe)

Asparagus – 1 pound, cut into 1 inch pieces

Salt and Pepper – as needed

Mrs Dash sodium free Lemon Pepper Seasoning – as needed (See My Notes)

Lemon juice

Navy Beans – 1 can (15 to 16oz) drained and rinsed

Step-by-Step Procedure 1. Cook and drain pasta as directed on package.

2. Meanwhile in a skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat.

3. Add bell pepper, asparagus, lemon pepper, salt; cook, stirring occasionally until vegetables are crisp-tender.

4. Stir in lemon juice and beans. Cook until beans are hot.

5. Add pasta; toss with vegetable mixture.

My Notes 1. If you have doubts about using whole wheat pasta, you can start with 1 cup of regular pasta and 1 cup of whole wheat pasta. Then slowly try increasing the ratio and in no time you would prefer only whole wheat pasta.

2. Grated lemon zest was used in the original recipe. Since I had the lemon pepper seasoning, I used it instead. So you can simply use a combination of salt, pepper and lemon juice to suit your taste.

3. I would also suggest using any other hard beans instead of navy beans. Navy beans are very soft and it becomes mushy when you toss the pasta a couple of times. I think either Kidney beans or Chickpeas would be perfect.