Ideal for EatingEating ethically while eating great!

It has been a pasta week so far. I've even got more pasta dishes planned for later in the week. And my family has been ecstatic. They just don't think it's a real meal unless pasta or rice is involved.

I've always been partial to bolognese sauce. Well, I love making a simple tomato-basil sauce from scratch with fresh local ingredients in the summer. But, for winter, bolognese is the way to go.

So what do you do when you're vegan? You just leave the meat out.

I always put lots of mushrooms in my bolognese sauce, even when I was eating meat. This time, I basically did what I always did, I just left out the meat, added more mushrooms, and replaced the milk with non-dairy milk. I served the bolognese sauce in a baked ziti with a little of my favorite cashew cheese sauce and melted tofu mozzarella on top. It was fantastic. Though my vegetarian daughter freaked out when she thought she was eating meat. Seriously. She could not tell the difference between my vegan bolognese and regular bolognese, and she panicked that I had somehow put meat in it. My husband ate seconds and thirds. And my other daughter, who still eats meat, said it was better than regular bolognese.

Success. It feels good.

My main suggestion for you in making this sauce is to use a food processor or hand chopper for the carrot and mushrooms. You want the carrot chopped super fine. So process them first. The mushrooms you want fine, but still with some coarse bits in it. If you over-process the mushrooms, they start to stick together and turn into a sort of paste. The hand chopper is safer for that reason. But it just takes so dang long. So go ahead and use the food processor to speed things up. Just do a little at a time, remove those from the food processor, then briefly process some more.

Voilà!

Baked Ziti with Vegan Bolognese Sauce—prep time: 1 1/2 hours; serves 8-12

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• ½ onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• ½ cup vermouth
• 1 carrot , finely chopped
• 18 ounces mushrooms, finely chopped
• ¼ cup non-dairy milk
• 14 ounces tomato sauce
• 1 ½ teaspoons Italian seasoning
• ½ teaspoon coriander
• ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
• ½ teaspoon oregano
• 1 teaspoon salt
• fresh ground black pepper
• 1 pound ziti
• 3 ounces Tofu Rella mozzarella, shredded
• 1 cup cashew cheese sauce

Vegan bolognese sauce—looks and feels meaty enough to fool meat-eaters and vegetarians!

Directions

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Heat oil in a large, deep skillet. Sauté onions and garlic for several minutes, until onions just start to brown.

Deglaze pan with vermouth.

Add carrots and mushrooms. Cook for 10 minutes. Add non-dairy milk and cook for a few minutes.

Add tomato paste and all herbs/spices, salt and pepper. Simmer over low heat for at least 20 minutes. The longer it simmers, the more the flavor will evolve.

Prepare pasta according to package directions. Cook only to al dente.

Mix pasta with cashew cheese sauce. Pour into a large casserole dish. Ladle bolognese sauce over pasta. Gently push sauce down into pasta in a few places. Sprinkle shredded tofu mozzarella over top. Bake in 400-degree oven for 15 minutes. Put under broiler for last couple of minutes to brown the top.

Remove from oven and let sit for several minute.

Serve warm.

Enjoy!