I’ve been on the road and can’t wait to have a simple dinner at home – something like spaghetti with a tomato sauce full of vegetables and a salad, probably. It’s not just dinner! It’s the quiet afternoon in my kitchen that precedes it, the time to handle things like emptying the compost, or sharpening a knife, or cleaning a cast iron pan while my dogs hang out and snore in their beds. After I’ve been away, a day like this can feel so luxurious.
I like to improvise my sauce, with onion and garlic and lots of veggies like fennel, carrots, celery and mushrooms, deglaze it all with wine, then simmer it all afternoon with crushed canned tomatoes. Then I drain some boiling spaghetti, continue cooking it in the sauce and cover bowls of it with grated cheese, mild herbs, lemon zest and black pepper.
But this week is different. I want to try Alexa Weibel’s vegan Bolognese and put it in a lasagna, partly because Lex uses walnuts and Marmite in her recipe.
That’s the intensely savory and salty yeast extract, sold as a very dark, slightly sticky paste. Sometimes, when I was sick as a child, I would have a large spoonful of Marmite dissolved in a mug of hot water, which was not pleasant. I think it makes more sense to treat it like nutritional yeast or other umami-rich ingredients and distribute it in the food you cook to build out the flavors.
I feel like a little prep and long simmering, but if you’re looking for a less complicated pasta, there’s always Ali Slagle’s Baked Alfredo Pasta. (I love broccoli rabe and double the greens, run them under cold water after they’re cooked until cool to the touch, then squeeze out the extra water and chop.)
And I really love turning this green soup, made with spinach and peas, into a real meal by topping it off with a bunch of cooked pasta shells. It’s vegetarian if you use a vegetable stock as a base and vegan if you skip the crème frache. I think it does need some fat because it’s so lean and green, so if you skip the dairy, season the soup extra generously with nice olive oil at the end. I mean, really, don’t hold back.
