I try to eat vegan once or twice a week. It’s a great way to reduce cholesterol that’s creeping from healthy to high. I absolutely love vegetables anyway, so being proactive made a lot of sense. And, these days, there are many quality meat substitutes.
Nevertheless, after a year or so of really enjoying vegan Mondays and Tuesdays, I began to run out of ideas. Even the better brands of vegan frozen foods started to taste the same, and the consistency left me wanting something to chew.
“If it looks good eat it.” I often enjoy Andrew Zimmern’s Food Network Show, Bizarre Foods. And, I happen to agree with him: If it looks good, eat it indeed! Everyone who meets me quickly learns that I will try absolutely anything at least once. My friends just say that I eat weird food.
When it comes to dining, I have two Rules to take Andrew Zimmern’s mission statement just a little bit farther:
1. If you’re going to cook it, it has to be beautiful.
2. If you’re going to eat it, it has to be delicious.
My first foray into whole vegan foods in the Farm-to-Table tradition was the Eggplant Parmesan recipe found on this blog https://bykathleenstauffer.com/338-2/. Usually it takes two to three tries to get a recipe just right. On occasion, I will think about ingredient combinations for weeks, even months or longer. And then, since I just throw the ingredients in there when the mood strikes, I have to try to figure out the proper measurements. That way, when people ask for the recipe, I just refer them to this blog. Easy for them, easy for me.
Thus began my quest to create meatless meals that would bring the same richness and enjoyment to my dinin
g table as the more traditional carnivorous, non-dairy fare frequently featured on my Facebook page. Since the Eggplant dish takes about two hours to bake and a half-hour to forty minutes to prep, it’s not an ideal dish to throw together after work.
Having tired of quick frozen meals, I needed to create something I could make after a long day. Cooking happens to relax me, but some days even I don’t want to cook. So I began by buying a higher-end non-dairy brand of spaghetti sauce, Bertolli. Adding it to pasta wasn’t completely filling, though. And, the dinner left me wanting protein.
The following week, I repeated the exercise combining some fresh basil leaves plucked from a plant by the kitchen sink, the sauce and some tofu cut into 1/8-inch squares.
The taste was fine, but the “chew” wasn’t there. Still too much mush, exactly what I was trying to avoid. For the next two weeks, I ruminated on what was missing. How could I create a quick, meatless meat sauce? I became obsessed.
Finally, craving spaghetti with meat sauce beyond all reason, I wickedly added a quarter-pound of hamburger to the sauce the following Monday. As I sat in my kitchen savoring the taste, looking across my deck into the beautiful winter woodland below, the flavors danced with my senses. I chewed. I enjoyed the scenery. I savored. I poured a half-glass of wine (another not-so-good-for-a-Monday habit!) Boy, did that spaghetti taste good!
The memory lingered. My obsession continued. I’d be sitting in meetings finding myself thinking about having another plate of proper spaghetti with meat sauce. But that was not the point. No, that was too easy. I needed a “meat” sauce offering precisely the dining experience I was seeking. A vegan meal.
Four tries and about three months later, Eureka! I had found it. Each time, the result had come closer to meat. The third time, I knew could nail it in another try. Attempt No. 4 was the charm. People who eat this bucatini recipe refuse to believe there’s no meat in the “meat” sauce. I am really sure you are going to love it as much as my friends and I do.
Spaghetti: I Can’t Believe It’s Not Meat Sauce
Drizzle three tablespoons or so of olive oil into a frying pan
INGREDIENTS
½ cup Bertolli tomato & basil sauce
½ cup Bertolli garlic & olive oil sauce
½ block firm tofu (even better if frozen beforehand)
½ box De Cecco bucatini pasta
½ cup red wine
1 tsp black pepper
1 1/2 tsp Lawry’s Seasoning Salt
1 tbsp dried parsley
1 small clove garlic
4-6 green basil leaves
Salt to taste
Thaw tofu enough for chopping, but not all the way.
PREPARATION: Boil water for the pasta following the directions on the package. While the water is heating to a boil, prepare the “meat” sauce. By the time your bucatini is done, your sauce will be ready for the pasta.
Cut ½ block firm tofu into 1/16-inch cubes, then continue chopping until the pieces are about the size of real hamburger. Toss the black pepper, some salt, parsley and garlic into the olive oil in the frying pan. Heat on high, adding the finely chopped tofu only after the oil is warm to hot.
Brown the tofu in the spices and the olive oil. Toss every few minutes as the tofu browns into a deep golden color and takes on a crumbly, burger-like texture. Add the red wine. Brown a bit more. Add the sauce and the basil. Keep on high until the sauce begins to glaze the pan and the sauce smells exactly like meat sauce. Turn down. Add a touch more sauce from either jar (about a tbs) and deglaze the pan.
Drain the bucatini. Add to the sauce and pan fry for a few minutes.
Enjoy!
NOTES: For ease of pan-frying, break bucatini into 3- to 4-inch lengths before boiling. When reheating – and I highly recommend making enough for a very quick warm-up the following day – add about a tablespoon of peanut oil to your pan. Heat on high. Pan fry leftover bucatini and meat sauce (ideally, you’ve left them tucked into one another, marinating in the same Tupperware bowl overnight). While flash-frying, add 2 more green basil leaves.
You will not believe it’s not meat sauce!
