It's Sunday, and my houseguest is downstairs rolling out handmade tagliatelle. In a moment I will go down and start chopping veggies for a double batch of sauce: a traditional bolognese and, for the non-meat-eaters in the household ... fauxlognese!
You need:
1 medium onion
1 carrot
1 stalk celery
1 green bell pepper
1 cup button mushrooms
1 medium zucchini
1 large garlic clove, smashed
1 pound of meat substitute such as Upton's Italian Sausage Style Seitan or Gimme Lean Soy "Beef"
Carefully dice all of the above. Do your best to keep the pieces the same size so they will cook uniformly.
Use a large sauce pan --- you don't want the veggies to be crowded --- and start by sauteeing the onions in a little olive oil and a tiny bit of butter. Always salt onions. When they're nice and brown, add each additional veggie in the following order: garlic, carrots & celery; mushrooms; peppers; and zucchini. Sautee until each is nice and soft , your kitchen is smelling amazing, and people are starting to poke their heads in the door and inquire about when it might dinner time, even though it is 10 o'clock in the morning and no one's finished their coffee yet.
Push the veggies over to the side of the pan (or if there are too many, set them aside in a covered dish and keep warm). Add a pound of sausage or beef substitute of your choice. You can use a package each of Upton's Italian Sausage Style and Ground Beef Style Seitan, or a package of Gimme Lean Soy. (I used the Gimme Lean Soy this time; it's my first time using the product and I prefer the consistency of seitan, which is more meatlike. The jury's still out on the taste). Add a little bit at a time, using your spatula to press it down and break it up into fine pieces, until it is all "browned" and thoroughly heated. Mix it with the veggies, still in the pan.
Now you need the following:
1 cup dry white wine
1 cup Imagine's No-Chicken Chicken Broth (you could also use veggie or mushroom broth), warmed.
1 cup milk (full fat if you're daring; soy or almond if you want to keep it healthy. I used almond because that's what I had on hand), warmed.
1 large can of San Marzano or Muir Glen Fire Roasted Diced Tomatoes
Push the mixture to the sides of the pan and deglaze with a cup of dry white wine. Pour the wine in the center of the pan and let it evaporate to the point where you can't smell it. Then transfer the whole mixture to an ovensafe lidded stock pot.
Pour the cup of warm milk over the mixture and bring it to a boil. Next, add the tomatoes and the veggie broth. If you wish, you can also add some herbs at this point. I had fresh sage and thyme on hand, so that's what went into the pot.
Cover the pot and simmer for 3-4 hours on the stove top, or in the oven on 250F. Go put your feet up for a while. Have your cabana boy bring you a glass of wine.
The mixture will be chunky. Before serving, you can transfer some of it to a food processor, or use an immersion blender, to reduce it to a finer consistency; but leave some of it coarse. Put the pot back on the burner, uncovered, to boil off any excess liquid. Since this version is vegetarian, it will probably have more liquid than is desireable, and you'll need to boil it off to get a proper thickish consistency.
Serve it over flat pasta, like tagliatelle or fettucine, or a corkscrew pasta. You want something hearty to stand up to the fauxlognese!
And now, I have to go work out so I can afford to eat some of this deliciousness tonight. I ended up taking yesterday off for various reasons, but it's time to get back to it! Legs, Back, and the dreaded Abs Ripper X, or as I like to call it , Fifteen Minutes of Hell. At least my house will smell good while I'm doing it!
Rebecca, I know there are some low-carb pastas out there, but I've never tried any. I just eat the real thing (whole wheat) and watch my portions. Ground turkey should work very well in the fauxlognese, and you might also try some chicken liver (if you like the flavor) added to the ground turkey --- you don't need much and it really adds a lot of richness to the flavor!
Congrats on overcoming the potato chip hoard, and next time ... don't let your hubby do the shopping!
Posted by: Cindy | August 30, 2011 at 07:01 PM
oh, and my boot camp is going, well, um, ok. My husband's idea of stocking up for the hurricane included making sure we would never run out of potato chips. Then he promptly left for the seaside to take photos of the storm (he's a photo-journalist) leaving me and his step daughter behind to take care of said potato chips. On the positive side, I took a long walk along the Hudson on Sunday to view the damage and when I stepped on the scale on Monday I did not gain one ounce. phew. I consider that progress.
Posted by: RebeccaNYC | August 30, 2011 at 06:32 PM
mmmm-mmm, that sounds yummy. With the weather turning to fall any moment now, this really sounds appealing. As a non-vegetarian, I think I will try this with some ground turkey. And I will follow the recipe to the letter have that cabana boy keep my wine glass full.
Do you have any suggestions for lower-carb pasta? I have tried a few brands, just wondered if you know of any I should try.
Posted by: RebeccaNYC | August 30, 2011 at 06:27 PM