Serves 6
1 portion of simple tomato sauce. You can make this yourself by gently frying finely chopped garlic, onion and basil stalks (half an onion, 1 clove of garlic and 3 or 4 basil stalks) in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, adding a tin of chopped tomatoes and a generous pinch of salt and sugar once softened. Simmer this for as long as you have patience (15-20 minutes should be enough to cook out that raw tomato taste).
If you prefer a speedier version, you can also just use a jar of ready-made ‘tomato sauce with garlic and onion’. If you cannot source a garlic and onion one, just add a crushed garlic clove to any regular ready-made tomato sauce.
1 red onion, chopped.
375g pasta (shape of your choice).
½ x bag of ready-to-cook carrots – chopped (or feel free to just chop up and pre-cook 2 medium sized carrots)
2 large brown mushrooms, chopped.
8-10 spears of asparagus, cut short.
3-4 tbsp. of cashew butter, you can make this yourself by blitzing cashews in a high-power blender for 2-3 minutes.
Olive oil.
Parsley to garnish
Method:
Preheat oven to 200°C.
Put pasta in a large pot of boiling water. Check pack instructions for cooking time.
Boil the asparagus until soft, about 3-4 minutes.
Add the chopped carrots, mushroom, onions and a little oil to a large pot over medium heat.
Add the asparagus and fry gently until everything is slightly softened.
Add the tomato sauce and continue cooking until bubbling. Stir occasionally.
Remove from the heat and stir in the cashew butter. Stir until the butter distributes evenly in the sauce, then add the cooked pasta.
Pour pasta and sauce into a baking dish and bake until bubbly, about 25-30 minutes.
Garnish with chopped parsley.
Easy to do and cheap to make, this was a meal enjoyed equally by myself and my meat-eating housemates. A summery treat at the end of a long day.
"While it is true that I need to make a special effort to maintain a well-balanced diet, I definitely believe that it is possible to make vegan life more exciting than “eating leaves for dinner”
cucina
Photography: Sonny Abesamiis - Flickr