Daring Bakers Challenge: Noodles!! for Lasagna

Time once again for another Daring Bakers Challenge!! Only this month we have a new website, new logos, and a very different kind of challenge: making your own pasta! And not just any pasta, spinach lasagna noodles layered with a country ragu and bechamel sauce. Veganizing this challenge wasn't even an issue. Those eggs that pasta recipes call for? Not needed at all! For the pasta dough I used a recipe from Nonna's Italian Kitchen, but substituted semolina flour for regular flour and added pureed spinach. I made my ragu using a simple marinara sauce recipe and adding some texture in the form of sauteed onions, green pepper, soy crumbles, fresh basil, and plenty of garlic. The bechamel started with a simple roux of Earth Balance and flour, with soymilk, white pepper, and nutmeg added to the mix and thickened. But really the whole process is best illustrated in pictorial format...

Since I am lucky enough to have a husband who is half Italian, we actually own a pasta machine! Not that I've ever used it until now. With John's help we cranked out pasta sheet after pasta sheet...
After cutting the pasta into shapes resembling lasagna noodles, they were spread out to dry. I had quite a bit of pasta leftover!Vegan Noodle holding one long vegan noodle!
Sauces simmering....
One thing about making your own pasta... it makes a mess. Flour everywhere and in every crevice!! It was even all over the floor by the time we finished.
But it was all worth it in the end. I'm not sure I'll ever be quite as happy with dried pasta. The two sauces complimented each other nicely and the noodles were amazing.

The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.

VeganMoFo: Pass the Radioactive Vegetables Please

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip....

For today's installment of vegan mofo, I cooked up a TV-themed dinner to an episode of Gilligan's Island. Gilligan reels in a mysterious crate containing seeds, but he failed to see the warning....
The seeds produced carrots, beets, spinach, and other vegetables as fast as the half life of radium-216m (7 nano seconds)! Then it was time to dig in and pass those vegetables!Mary Anne's favorite vegetable was the carrot, and these radioactive carrots had so much carotene in them that her eye sight allowed her to see miles away! Here she is pointing out a potential rescue ship as the Skipper and the Professor look on squinting.
Mrs. Thurston Howell III (aka "Lovey") just adored sugar beets! All that sugar made her a bit hyperactive though and she actually ran around the hut cleaning.
Gilligan ate more than his share of spinach, and the radioactive amounts of "oxalic minerals" enabled him to pick up entire tree trunks and even the Skipper!
So how did we eat our radioactive vegetables? I roasted the beets (along with fennel), sauteed the spinach, and made a curried carrot soup. And although we didn't experience the same effect as the castaways did, at least we didn't have to "apply the principals of theoretic chemistry to the problem of radioactivity" and eat soap to "prevent the bombardment of radioactive chemicals", as the Professor puts it.
Hope you enjoyed your three minute tour!

Her Choice

A his and hers post for VeganMoFo....

I love pasta. I think I could eat it everyday if allowed. But, sadly John would go crazy and stop eating what I fix, so compromise is necessary. On Monday night it was my choice, so we tried the Roasted Tomato and Fennel Pasta from ED&BV. This was such a simple dish to put together, and even though there was not an actual "sauce", there was still plenty of flavor. I added a bunch of chopped spinach to the pasta after cooking so it would wilt, just wanted an extra boost of greens. Topped it with plenty of basil, toasted pine nuts, and capers. Next time I would almost double the amount of veggies.

Next up, his choice...

**And an update. You'll notice there is no longer a smudge on my photos. :-) Embarassingly enough, I did not think to look at the lens, which was very dirty. A little wipe, and all better. The curse has been broken!

I Want My Spinach!

Oh no, here we go again. I just saw an article stating that a California company has recalled fresh spinach due to a positive test for salmonella. No illness has been reported yet. I remember the spinach scare last year (due to E. coli) that kept my favorite salad green off the shelves for what seemed like weeks! Please please don't let this happen... I was counting on eating healthy salads these next few weeks!

Now of course, I understand that if there is a chance that spinach is contaminated, that it should be pulled from the shelves. What angers me is the double standard! Meat recalls happen everyday, how often do you hear about them? During the spinach scare of 2006 you couldn't find spinach anywhere, but have you ever seen all beef taken off the shelves due to recall? No, of course not, because the meat industry and the USDA are best buddies. And of course, since the spinach scare, I meet so many people that, when I inform them I'm vegan, make some crack about how I have a better chance of getting salmonella because I eat vegetables. HELLO! Don't they realize that is the factory farming industry that is responsible for the E. coli and salmonella in my leafy greens?

Here's hoping....