This is isn't a food blog (nor am I a "foodie") but I noticed that my very rudimentary food posts seem to get a fair number of views so I decided that I should perhaps be a little more diligent in sharing my meager (sometimes pathetic) attempts at cooking. Oh yes, and I'll even post the inevitable disasters... I can't wait!
On today's menu: spaghetti and steamed veggies.. yum!
This was actually pretty good even though I used *gasp* canned tomatoes. I used one large can of whole peeled tomatoes which I "chopped"
very slightly in my blender. I then poured that over 1 large chopped onion and about 4 cloves of crushed garlic that I had browned with oil in a large pot. Also added were a nice healthy sprinkle of thyme (about 1 tablespoon), a dash of olive oil, a few pinches of salt and sugar to taste and about 3/4 cup of water. This was cooked on medium for about 2 hours, stirring occasionally. I opened the lid every once in awhile to let the extra water evaporate off.
Somewhere along the line I added a huge heap of fresh chopped parsley which subsequently turned brown. In retrospect I'm not even sure adding the parsley that early even helped with the flavor so I added some more fresh parsley to the top of the pasta once it was cooked. I also added about 3/4 cup of peas about half an hour before the pasta was done cooking.
That yellow-orange sprinkle on the top? That's
nutritional yeast. It's a somewhat controversial (I won't really get into that here) yeast product that's often used as a cheese substitute in vegan cooking. I've sometimes likened the taste to a wet dog which is probably the least appetizing (almost vomit inducing?) description EVER. I mean, it's slightly accurate, but the overall taste is more or less slightly nutty, slightly bitter and slightly cheesy. Why that equates to wet dog in my mind I'm not really sure, but I won't dwell on it!
I usually use whole wheat pasta but I was out (booo!). Today's veggies were some organic steamed broccoli and Brussels sprouts covered with a somewhat gross looking slathering of
Vegenaise.
Just a quick reminder that the CSN stores giveaway ends tonight (2/27) at 11:59 PM PST. All it takes is a quick comment to be placed into the drawing for a CSN item under $50 of your choice, so you should definitely give it a shot!
