Lunch - Pasta with Sauce

 

I am frequently asked what we eat for meals and so I am going to try and document as many recipes as I can.  I didn't have time to photograph the processing or the end result of this meal, so my apologies in advance.  Many times, our meals are a concoction of ingredients we have on hand as opposed to following a set recipe.  Each time we make our recipes, they seem to evolve anyway.  What is nice about cooking with vegetables is that most of them mix well together. 

 

Last week, I needed to make a meal for the boys and I wanted it to be nutrient rich.  I wanted to make some pasta with sauce for them but my first thought was that the only major nutrient was the tomatoes in the sauce, so I felt the need to boost the nutrient value of this meal a bit. 

 

First of all, think of the pasta as just the carrier for the nutrient dense sauce.  I make all different types of sauces but for this one I mixed in the blender the combination of 1/2 cup original flavored almond milk, 1/3 jar of store bought marinara(I used 1/3 jar of Muir Glen Fire Roasted Tomato Sauce (found at Walmart), 1/4 raw onion, one cup watercress(optional), two cups of spinach,  3 olives (I used kalamata), 1/2 portabella mushroom and a heaping tablespoon of previously made hummus(optional - may substitute 1 clove of garlic, but there will be improved taste if the garlic has been roasted, which it is in the hummus).   After blending this together, I put it into a saucepan with 1/2 cup of cut up tempeh on low heat until the pasta was finished, stirring occasionally.  Once the pasta was drained, I mixed the pasta and sauce and let it cool down before serving.  As the sauce cools down, more of it sticks to the pasta.  For nutrient dense sauces like this, I use pasta shapes that are going to scoop or hold as much of the sauce as possible, so the kids fill up on sauce and not just on pasta.  I have the kids use spoons for this instead of forks, again to scoop up as much of the sauce as possible.

 

Ingredients:
Pasta - whole wheat, shapes that hold or scoop the sauce
Almond Milk - Original Flavor (NOT Vanilla Flavored)
Marinara
Onion
Watercress and/or Spinach and/or Kale
Olives - I used kalamata
Mushroom - any type
Hummus - (optional), if not hummus, then substitute 1 clove of garlic, preferably already roasted
Tempeh(or Seitan) - for protein

Yes, the sauce looks green (like pesto sauce, as one of my patients reminded me) and it tastes really good.  Don't just think of the ingredients as flavors but also as nutrients.  Each vegetable you add add nutrients to the mix so don't be shy to add a diversity of vegetables.  If I would have had them on hand, I would have added squash or zucchini to the blended mix. 

 

Okay, if this all seems too overwhelming for you, start out blending some spinach with your marinara and serve over pasta, Or squash.  Or zucchini. Start out simple if you like, but adding the onion, mushrooms, garlic, olives, etc. will give it much more flavor and nutrition.