Vegan Stuffed Shells

After graduating and a change of city and life in general, I am back to creating one single meal that I can take for lunch every week.  An added challenge for me is now to create meals that are filling enough for John and to create enough to last two of us all week.  We are working out the kinks in this regime, but in general we’re having pretty good success surviving on whatever we throw together on Sundays.

Our new favorite recipe was forwarded to me from a friend, who was emailed the recipe herself.  This means that I don’t know who created the original recipe, or where it’s from.  It’s pretty fantastic, so do try it!

 

Vegan Stuffed Shells:

Ingredients:

One box of jumbo pasta shells

One 14 0z. block of tofu

One onion

2 Tbs olive oil

3 cloves of garlic

3 cups of basil (or less – we had probably one cup’s worth and it was fine)

One 12 oz bag of frozen spinach (or one bag of fresh spinach – also ok)

2 Tbs lemon juice

1 1/4 t. salt

1 1/2 t pepper

Optional:  1 jar of marinara sauce, cheese to sprinkle on top (making this non-vegan, of course)

 

Instructions:

1.  Cook pasta shells
2. Pre-heat oven to 375.
3. Chop onion and saute it together with the spinach in olive oil.  This amount of onion seemed a lot to me compared to the amount of tofu at first, but the end-result is not too oniony.
4. Combine the tofu, garlic, lemon juice, salt, pepper in a food processor and process until everything is combined and has the consistency of ricotta.  (The night we made this, our food processor died and we mashed everything together with a potato masher – very easy with perfect results.  Chop the garlic first though.)
5. Add the onions, spinach and basil to the tofu mixture.
6. To bake these, you have two options, both of which we tried.  If you like red sauce, spoon some red sauce into the bottom of a baking pan.  Put the cooked shells into the pan and fill with the tofu mixture.  Spoon the remainder of the red sauce on top of the stuffed shells.  ALTERNATIVELY, if you’re like me and don’t like red sauce, or simply don’t want it, pour a little olive oil into the bottom of the baking pan, put the shells in, fill them, and drizzle them with olive oil or cheese (fresh mozzarella or parmesan are both good options).  While I only tried the second version, both got high marks from John.
7.  Cover the baking pan with foil and put in oven.  Cook them for 20 minutes.

These were easy to put in a container and take to work.  Even if they were shaken up a bit , they’re still delicious.  While I have another stuffed pasta shell recipe on this site, I probably won’t make it again as this one is just as wonderful and much healthier.  I can’t recommend it enough.

Quinoa-Stuffed Peppers

A vegetarian friend invited me to dinner a few weeks ago and made me the peppers I’m sharing here today.   And I’m telling you now, these are one of the healthiest meals, if not *the* healthiest meal I’ve found yet that will last a whole week.  They are stuffed with vegetables and protein and the only substance that is not health-promoting is the cheese, which could be omitted.   These easily last all week when refrigerated and as the recipe says, you can freeze the peppers for later.  Yum.  The original recipe is here, but since I modified it to make it simpler, I’ll also include the recipe I used.  If I remember correctly, my friend included more of the vegetables than I did, including probably the tomatoes, and it was delicious, but I strive for simplicity here.

 

Ingredients:

4 peppers halved with ribs removed (I used green cause they’re my favorite, but yellow and red of course will work too)

3/4 c. quinoa

1 15 oz. can black beans

1 10 oz. package frozen spinach (I’m sure fresh spinach would be even better.  Also, the original recipe says to thaw and squeeze out the spinach before hand – I did not and everything worked out just fine.)

1 medium onion (I used a red onion since that’s what I already had, but a yellow onion would probably be better)

1 1/2 c. cheese (I used pepper jack)

1 T. cumin

olive oil

3 cloves garlic

2 c. water

Instructions:

1.  Saute the chopped onions in the olive oil until translucent.

2.  Add cumin and garlic and cook for about a minute more.

3.  Add spinach (though honestly I forgot to add the spinach and added it after adding the quinoa – it was fine).

4.  Add the black beans, quinoa and 2 cups of water.

5.  Boil, then reduce to a simmer for about 20 minutes or until quinoa is cooked.

6.  Stir in 1 c. of cheese and remove from heat.

7. Turn on the oven to 350d.

8.  Place the peppers in a pan and spoon the quinoa mixture into them.  If there is any extra, pour it and any remaining juices into the pan around the peppers.

9.  Sprinkle the remaining cheese on the peppers.

10.  Cover with aluminum foil and put in oven.  Cook for about 45 minutes.

11.  Remove aluminum foil and cook for another 15 minutes, until peppers are brown.

12.  Enjoy!  And/or freeze if you want to keep them for later.  They actually are pretty tasty cold too if one isn’t in a place with a microwave later.

Lentils with sour cherries, bacon and Gorgonzola

Last week I was going through all of my cookbooks to find a recipe with quinoa.  I was inspired and wanted to find a go-to recipe.  Instead, I found this amazing and amazingly strange recipe from the Ottolenghi Cookbook (which I cannot recommend enough btw).  I was fascinated and decided to chance this recipe as my weekly meal.  And . . . I can’t even describe how wonderful it is.  Yes, it’s a bit strange, but all the flavors are beautiful and come together smoothly.  I made the recipe according to its specs, but next time I make it, I will have to at least double it.  It will get me through three lunches and one dinnerish, but I want it MORE.  I want it for three meals a day all week.  In the meantime, I have to dole it out little by little.  You don’t understand how excited I am about lunch tomorrow.

Oh, and btw, the ingredients in the cookbook are in grams, but since grams don’t make sense to me, I’ll give you both their measurements and mine.

Ingredients:

125g Puy Lentils (1 1/2 c. green lentils)

2 bay leaves (I didn’t have any, so I left this out)

2 shallots

3 T olive oil

3T water

1 t sugar

60 g. dried sour cherries (1 cup dried sour cherries)

70 ml red wine vinegar (See below for my measurement)

8 bacon rashers (strips :))

80 g baby spinach (again, see below for what I do with the spinach)

120 g creamy Gorgonzola cheese (ditto)

salt and black pepper

1.  Cook the bacon and break it into largish pieces.

2.  While bacon is cooking, wash and cook the lentils.  You can cook the lentils just like pasta – put about 3 times as much water as lentils and cook until al dente.

3.  Also at the same time if you can, make the sauce. Dice the shallots and brown them in the olive oil.  Once they are golden, add water, sugar, cherries and vinegar.  For amounts, I first added the vinegar, just enough to cover the cherries.  Then everything else went in and was stirred together.  Whether or not this lead to the correct balance of flavors according to the cookbook, it worked well for me.  The book says to cook it until the sauce is thick – I missed this part and the sauce still was great.

4.  Once the lentils are done, drain them and immediately add the sauce, so the lentils can soak up the flavors.  Taste, and add salt and pepper as needed.

5.  Add the bacon pieces to the lentils.

6.  Now, if you’re making this to serve later, or to take to lunch, you’re done for the moment.  Whenever you want to serve it, add in a handful of the baby spinach to each serving, and lightly top with the cheese.  And I mean lightly top – the cheese flavor is so strong that it easily overwhelms everything else.  I add the spinach and cheese right before leaving for work in the morning and this has worked well.  Otherwise, the spinach gets slimy and the doesn’t stay as fresh.

Mmm. Enjoy and go buy the cookbook for more wonderful recipes!

Stuffed Shells

Stuffed pasta shells are another wonderful winter meal that lasts a whole week.  I’m sure there are lots of good recipes out there for this, but the one I use is from 101 Cookbooks.  And here’s the link.  I love that this recipe adds chives to the shells and uses three types of cheese.  I always add spinach to the ricotta mixture, in keeping with my rule to always make meals with vegetables in them.

Also, I don’t like red sauce on these.  I know, I know, this is strange.  Whenever I order these in a restaurant I have to really convince the waiter that I really don’t want the red sauce.  Last time I tried this, the cook himself brought out my meal to make doubly sure that I meant what I had said and then stood around while I took my first bite.  He only left when I assured him I was more than happy with the pasta the way it was.

Since this is the case, I usually make up a sauce for the shells.  I’ve done white sauces, but that makes these even less healthy than they already are.  My most recent attempt was just pouring some olive oil infused with garlic over them.  This works well, but the taste is not quite as exciting.  Next time I want to try a wine sauce.  I rarely cook with wine, since I hate opening a bottle just for cooking (and I can never finish off a bottle by myself).  But I might have to make an exception this time.

The stuffed shells are great warmed up for days (maybe even better than fresh out of the oven?) and are very satisfying.  They make me feel warm, full and content.   I don’t make them often since they do have a lot of cheese in them, but they’re always worth it.