Neurotic Lesbian Vegetarian Spag Bol

Like Yossarian of Catch-22, I plan to live forever or die trying. It’s a work in progress. It’s a research intensive and expensive operation. My long suffering, meat eating girlfriend looks on patiently, betraying her growing dread with only the subtlest of panic-induced eye twitches.

I suppose what I should have started with is – hello, welcome to my new blog. What I hope you’ll eventually find here are recipes, book reviews, and badly researched rants on how to live forever.

To get us off to a delicious start, this is what I made for dinner tonight.

VEGETARIAN SPAGHETTI BOLAGNAISE

Source: A very edited version of the recipe from “Cook Smart for a Healthy Heart”; most notably, my version lacks meat.

Vegan note: no actually – at least, not with the wine I used, which was made with the assistance of egg and milk, apparently. I’m sure there is such a thing as vegan red wine, but it has never occurred to me to check.

Meat notes: This is a good vego recipe to cook for corpse-avores, because you can just add mince in a separate saucepan. Which is much easier if you’re not using the stove I am:


And now for the recipe:

Assemble these food stuffs
Onion
Carrot
Garlic
Mushrooms
Sundried Tomatoes (I use oil free)
Red Wine
Fresh or Canned Tomatoes (I use a combination)
Beef Flav Stock (vegetarian flavoured stocks are pretty easy to find)
Thyme
Parsley (fresh is best)
Pepper (freshly cracked black pepper is yummiest)

Get some water boiling for the spaghetti, and while that's going, chop up the above and cook together. If you use a non-stick pan there's no need for oil.


Other things:

• There aren't any quantities, so you can just add as much or as little as tastes good to you.
• Obviously, the more mushy tomatoes and wine you add, the runnier the sauce will be.
• The longer you cook it for, the more flavoursome and thick the sauce will be.
• I never add oil or salt to water when I'm boiling pasta, and I've never had problems with my pasta sticking together.
• Don't wear your best white shirt when cooking this.

This is what my girlfriend's spag bol evolved into in the time it took me to put the plate down and find a camera:
I used mock-mince when I made this tonight, but I don't normally - I just wanted to see if it added anything to the meal. It didn't. This recipe absolutely does not need fake meat! I would argue, in fact, that no recipe does.

Did I mention I have absolutely no innate cooking ability? But sometimes my girlfriend eats my food, vegetables and all, and this makes me happy indeed.

Signing off,

-Cardboard Chef