UFO attacked my pasta- How I saved the world one bite at a time

As I was walking down the supermarket aisle I noticed an odd looking pasta shape. I picked it up thinking we could use it for dinner that night and then kept it back because we decided to make our own pasta. But then when I looked at it again I actually noticed what it was. It was UFO shaped pasta! I remember seeing all kinds of unmentionable shapes and colours in Italy. But UFOs?! As weird as it may sound, the pack was filled with the cutest little durum wheat alien vehicles. How could I not pick it up?!

Uncooked UFOs

Cooked UFOs

We ended up making Lasagna for dinner that night, but the next morning our pasta quota wasn't over just as yet. It was almost brunch time till I decided I was going to attempt the American junk classic Macaroni and Cheese. I searched the internet for inspiration and then finally came up with my own version using whatever I had and thought was healthy enough to be added into the sauce.

Here's how it went.

You need:

1 cup whole cashews
1/3rd cup Nutritional Yeast
3 cloves of Garlic
1 small Onion
1 tbsp Corn Starch
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon mustard powder
Salt
Pepper
Water

2 cups Cooked Pasta

Blend the cashews till they are a fine powder. Don't let it get to the butter stage. Add in the nutritional yeast, garlic, onion and blend. It might all clump up together. Add a little water to make it a fine paste.

In a saucepan, mix the corn starch, soy sauce and mustard powder. Add a little water and bring to a boil. Add in the cashew paste and add water little bit at a time till it gets to a nice thick consistency. Add salt, pepper and take it off the stove.

At this stage I added some chopped capsicum but you could leave it out if you want or add any vegetables of your choice.

Mix it with the cooked pasta in a bake proof dish and bake for 10 minutes at 175C till the top browns a bit.

Serve hot.

We're safe now. I ate the last UFO.

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Travelling Vegan- Positano, Italia

The (Postcard) view of Positano from the sea

Positano to Italy is what the Nicobar Islands are to India. It's absolutely stunning, not too many Italians can afford to go there and all the locals are in the tourism business. (I myself have never been to Nicobar and of course Positano has no indigenous tribes that live there)

Wikipedia has the right description for Positano:

"... a relatively poor fishing village during the first half of the 20th century. It began to attract large numbers of tourists in the 1950s, especially after John Steinbeck published his essay about Positano in Harper's Bazaar in May, 1953: "Positano bites deep", Steinbeck wrote. "It is a dream place that isn’t quite real when you are there and becomes beckoningly real after you have gone."

I can vouch for that!

Positano is a picture perfect town by the Amalfi Coast. The towns on the Amalfi Coastline are known for their Lemons and they are full of them. Everywhere you go you see Lemons either growing by the hills, on pottery as designs, hanging by store fronts, displayed proudly outside with other produce and also as table settings in restaurants. It's everywhere and they are so proud of it. They should be! Those lemons are absolutely stunning. There is a whiff of it's scent in the air whenever you're close to one and I was always found myself singing 'Lemon Tree' by Fool's Garden.

Hoping just one would fall as we rode by!

Slopes and slopes of lemon plantations

Lemons that are bigger than Oranges!

Lemons that are bigger than Pineapples!!

Pottery from Amalfi

After stuffing myself in Rome, I didn't have much to expect from a sea side coastal town. I knew I'd come across a lot of sea food. And there is also the Limoncello (lemon gelati) made from local lemons. I also read about Almond milk sold locally in a small shop en route to the beach. It was very intense, too sweet for my liking but I drank it nevertheless.

Spaghetti al Pomodoro

Pizza with Tomatoes and Arugula

Aglio Olio

Pizza with Mushrooms and Oregano

Spaghetti with Tomatoes, Black Olives and Basil

Pizza Margherita

Vegetable Soup

Almond Milk

Positano is full of slopes and narrow lanes with walls lined with beautiful Bouganvilleas and lovely Jasmine shrubs. There are pots of tiny blue flowers and you will find lemons and oranges as if they were fallen leaves. By night, Positano turns into a Bond film - everyone puts on their best dresses and dinner coats and steps out of their hotels for dinner. Travelling musicians pull up in their cars, get off and serenade you with Italian songs (and at least two versions of Volare / Nel blu dipinto di blu). One night, to celebrate Positano, we made our own dinner (open sandwiches) using local ingredients and sat by the gorgeous view from our pretty balcony. We got the local lemons, cherry tomatoes, red peppers with some bread from a bakery, mushrooms in olive oil, a piquant black olive pate, acidic red wine vinegar with some mustard. It was a melee of flavours and it all came together wonderfully with some champagne, the silent sea, and faint music playing somewhere below.

Bouganvilleas - pretty in pink!

Jasmine

(Did you know Jasmine and Olives are from the same plant family!)

Prepping Dinner

Nothing beats the views that Positano, Ravello, Amalfi and Capri have to offer and the food is not going to be topmost on your mind when you are here. The coast takes the cake.

Capri's Faraglioni -

that have a species of lizards that are only found on these isolated rocks and no where else in the world!

Positano sizzles and shivers by the night light

A Perfect ending on our last night in Positano

(This picture has not been edited!)

Next stop : Venezia!

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Cheesy Eggplant Lasagne

This recipe is a culmination of inspirations from two close childhood friends/neighbours. One, my dear friend S who now lives in the Emerald City and another dear friend T who is one of the very few chaddi buddies of mine who hasn't left this country (yet)!

S wrote to me about the Eggplant Lasagne she makes at home all the time replacing those sheets of whole wheat with sliced eggplant. Eggplant might not be everyone's favourite vegetable, but this recipe turns it into something else. It's quite a common recipe and it's very easy to veganise.

T on the other hand, cooked up this lovely appetizer for the (three) vegans at her birthday party using mushrooms, peppers and tofu. It so happened that the morning S wrote to me, this was my dinner and I had to use T's method of making tofu into cheese for the lasagne.

This is not my original recipe, in fact you will find hundreds if you search for it. I just adapted it to my taste.

You need:

One large Eggplant, peeled and sliced thin

2 cups Red Pasta Sauce (Home made or store bought. I usually blanch/ steam the tomatoes,

puree them and put it through a seive. Cook Onions, Garlic, Capsicum, add herbs and add the tomato puree, a hint of chilli, salt and pepper. Let it simmer for 15 mins.)

1 block of firm tofu (200gms)

2 cloves of garlic

Any more veggies you want to add in to the lasagne like mushrooms, spinach, steamed carrots, peppers, zucchini, etc or you can just keep it simple and serve a salad on the side.

Any oil (olive/ rice bran/ sunflower/ safflower)

Oregano and Thyme

Salt

The Eggplant has to be cooked well before it is assembled into the lasagne. There are two ways of doing it in your oven or on a pan. If you don't have an oven, just heat a little bit of oil in a pan and put in as many slices of eggplant as you can. Turn it over when it is soft and brown underneath and cook both sides well. This may be a bit of a mess specially because the eggplant sticks easily.

The other way is to preheat your oven and arrange the eggplant in an oiled tray. Sprinkle some salt, oil, oregano, thyme and chunks of garlic. Let this cook for 20 mins or till brown and then turn it over and cook for another 15 minutes.

While this is happening you can get started on the tofu. Squeeze out the water from the tofu by pressing it between your hands. Break it up and put it into a blender/ chopper. Let it get mushy and look almost like spoilt curd (you can grate it alternatively, but I find the blender easier). Heat one teaspoon oil in a pan, add some garlic, herbs, salt and add in this tofu puree. Cook it well till the tofu softens which will happen in about 5 minutes. It takes a bit of stirring and scraping, but it's totally worth it. This can be used as a base for so many more recipes. I also made a Vegan Caesar Salad with this which I will add next.

Once you have everything ready, it's time to assemble. Remember to preheat your oven/ grill at least ten minutes before so you can get your hands on this thing faster!

Use a wide bowl and start with a layer of the cooked eggplant. Once you have your base covered, top it up with some of the sauce and vegetables if using any. Then comes the cheesy layer of the tofu. Repeat till you are exhausted with all your ingredients and remember to end with the tofu cheese. Sprinkle some oregano and thyme on top and pop it in the oven for about 20-30 minutes. The idea is to get it nice and hot and maybe even allow the tofu on top to brown a bit (only if your oven has a top heating device).

That's it! Serve hot with some nice salad (I made Fire Roasted Peppers, Artichokes and Cherry

Tomatoes in the Greek inspired Olive Oil Dressing)

(Sorry about the bad picture, when the food is ready to eat, taking a picture is the last thing on my mind.)

The juicy eggplant is such a brilliant replacement for the sheets of wheat. It sucks in all the flavour of the tomato sauce and has a lovely flavour of its own to add to the experience.

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Pasta con Crema Bianca

The first thing you think about when you shift from being vegetarian to vegan is how am I not going to eat all the cheese, cream, milk and all the things that are made with them?!

I love Italian food and for me it was the white sauce with pasta that I was going to miss the most. That's what I thought till I tried this one....

For the sauce you need

1/2 cup dry, raw and unsalted cashews

An Onion chopped fine

Garlic if you like

Green Chillies or Red Chilli Flakes

Green, Red and Yellow Capsicum (whatever you like / have) cut in to 1/2 inch cubes

Broccoli florets

Corn / baby corn

Mushrooms chopped thin

Steamed and cubbed potatoes

Steamed and chopped carrots

Sun dried tomatoes if you like

Herbs:

Mixed Italian herbs

Or if you have individual dried herbs you need 1/4 tsp each of Oregano, Rosemary, Basil and Parsley.

Or if you have fresh herbs it's even better.

Salt & Pepper

Pasta: Penne/Fusilli/ Farfalle (bow tie)/ Conchiglie (shell)

Start cooking the pasta in a pot of boiling water first. The sauce will be ready before you know it.

Dry roast the cashews till they start showing brown patches on them. Powder the cashews in a blender and add some water to make a paste.

In a sauce pan put in the chopped onion with a teaspoon of water. Add the garlic, sauté it for a bit and

then add in the cashew paste. Let it cook for 3 minutes and then add about 1 cup of water. Stir in the vegetables and let them all simmer together till the cashew is a nice thick consistency. If you think the sauce is not enough add in a little bit more of water and let it simmer. Add the chilli flakes, herbs, salt and pepper. Serve with pasta.

There is no need of olive oil but if you want the flavour add the olive oil in the end after you take the sauce off the heat. You could also make this sauce in to a pesto by adding some freshly ground basil leaves to the sauce in the end. With the basil this sauce doesn't stay in the fridge so finish it the same day.

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