Monday Recipes

Here are today's six vegetarian recipes to start off your week. Enjoy!

MEATLESS-BALL SUBS

1 package Meatless Balls (see note)

1 26 oz. Jar spaghetti sauce

4 hoagie rolls

cheese slices

Place spaghetti sauce and meatless balls into a good-sized saucepan. Stir, and cook over medium-low to medium heat, stirring occasionally.





Open hoagie rolls, add cheese, cover with meatless balls and sauce.



Makes 4 meatless ball subs.

Note: I use Veggie Patch Meatless Meatballs, though really, you can use any brand you like. I had used another brand for a number of years, but unfortunately, I can no longer find that particular brand anywhere now. Whatever brand you buy is fine, as well as the jarred spaghetti sauce.

SPAGHETTI SAUCE

This recipe, as well as the Vegetarian Lasagna, Angel Hair Pasta, and J's B-B-Q Gluten, are all from my e-cookbook, Off the Wall Cooking.

28 oz. can tomatoes (note)

2 – 8 oz. cans tomato sauce

2 – 6 oz. cans tomato paste

3 onions, chopped

3 – 5 cloves garlic, crushed

2 T oil

1 T oregano

1 tsp. basil

1 tsp. thyme

1 tsp. dill

1 tsp. anise

2 T honey

1 T vinegar

1 T soy sauce

1/4 – 1/2 lb. grated cheese

Brown onions & garlic in oil. Add tomatoes, sauce & pasted. Stir. Add everything except cheese & stir. Simmer 1 hour. Add cheese & stir until cheese is melted. Serve over hot spaghetti. Better the next day—if any is left!

Note: I usually use crushed tomatoes. If you’d rather use fresh tomatoes, 6-8 large ones may be used (diced, of course) in place of the canned tomatoes, & add an extra can of tomato sauce.

VEGETARIAN LASAGNA

I’d been making lasagna for years, using a favorite cookbook. One time, my oldest son took the same recipe, and replaced the meat with eggplant. His came out tasting better than when I made it.

I tried recreating the eggplant version, but it never quite came out the same. So, I ended up changing the recipe drastically, changing ingredients and amounts. The funny thing is that, while I use one or two packages of tofu crumbles instead of meat, it tastes enough like meat to fool several non-vegetarians. One person, after eating this, even looked at me aghast, asking, “What are you, some kind of vegetarian?” Never heard from him again.

Tomato sauce:

2 – 3 onions, chopped

3 – 5 cloves garlic, minced

28 oz. can tomatoes

2 – 8 oz. cans tomato sauce

2 – 6 oz. cans tomato paste

2 T oil

1 T oregano

1 tsp. basil

1 tsp. thyme

1 tsp. dill

1 tsp. anise

1 or 2 – 10 oz. package tofu crumbles

Brown onions & garlic in oil. Add remaining ingredients, stir well, simmer for 1 hour. While sauce is cooking, in a separate pot, cook 16 oz. lasagna noodles & make cheese layer.

Cheese layer:

2 C sour cream

2 C cottage cheese

2 eggs

4 C mozzarella, grated

2 C cheddar cheese, grated

1 C Parmesan cheese

Mix ingredients together in large bowl.

Assemble:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In 9” X 13” pan, place half the cooked lasagna noodles length-wise. Top with half the cheese mixture, then half the tomato sauce. Repeat. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes. Let cool a few minutes before cutting, as it tends to be a little runny when it first comes out of the oven. Serve with a salad and a loaf of hot Italian bread. Very yummy.

ANGEL HAIR PASTA

I had something similar to this at a restaurant several times, and decided to try making it. A hint for making this: wait until all the veggies have been cut up, then start the water boiling for the angel hair pasta. The veggies should be cooked for 2-4 minutes, and the pasta cooked for 2 minutes before the pasta is drained and then allowed to finish cooking for another 2 minutes with the veggies. Timing is important—unless you like disgustingly soggy pasta.

1/4 C water

3 medium to large tomatoes

2 T balsamic vinegar

1 onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 red pepper, diced

1/2 green pepper, diced

1 T oregano

1 lb. angel hair pasta

Cut up veggies while heating the pasta water. DO NOT PUT PASTA INTO WATER UNTIL THE VEGGIES BEGIN COOKING. (There. I said it.)

In veggie pot, heat 1/4 C water & balsamic vinegar until it begins to bubble; add onion, garlic, pepper & oregano and stir once or twice. NOW ADD PASTA TO POT OF BOILING PASTA WATER. (Boy, what a bossy broad.)

Simmer veggies on low-medium heat for 2-4 minutes, covered. Cook pasta for only 2 minutes, then drain in colander. As soon as pasta is drained, remove cover from veggies, dump pasta into veggie pot, and cook for another 2 minutes, stirring several times. Remove from heat. DIG IN!!! (Now, isn’t that good?)

SHOOFLY PIE

This comes from Sara Bonisteel in The New York Times cooking e-newsletter. Sara wrote, “Shoofly pie is often thought of as the cake baked in a pie shell, or so wrote Jean Hewitt, The New York Times food writer who offered this recipe in the paper in 1965. This pie was served at a Pennsylvania Dutch luncheon hosted by the International Cuisine Group of the College Woman’s Club of Westfield, N.J., in the spring of that year. One of the organizers dug up the recipe from her mother’s ‘Housekeeper’s Scrap Book, 1896.’ There were four versions of the pie in the book; this was the one marked: ‘We like this one better.’” Yield: 8 servings; Time: 45 minutes.

To view this online, click here. Also, check out the Times tutorial “How to Make A Pie Crust”.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup dark brown sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/4 pound (1 stick) cold unsalted butter

3/4 cup molasses

3/4 cup boiling water

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 single crust pie pastry (see recipe, which follows), rolled flat and placed in a 9-inch pie plate

Preparation

Heat oven to 450 degrees.

Make the crumb topping: Mix flour, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt together in a bowl. Cut in the butter with a pastry cutter until the consistency resembles cornmeal.

Combine molasses, water and baking soda and pour into pastry shell. Spoon the crumb mixture evenly over the top. Bake 15 minutes, lower the heat to 350 degrees and bake 20 minutes longer, or until set and firm.

PIE PASTRY

This is from Craig Claiborne and Piere Franey in The New York Times cooking e-newsletter. Yield: Pastry for an 8- to 10-inch pie.

To view this online, click here.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups flour

8 tablespoons cold butter cut into half-inch cubes

1 tablespoon sugar

2 to 3 tablespoons ice water

Preparation

Put the flour, butter and sugar into the container of a food processor. Start blending.

Gradually add enough water so that the dough can be gathered into a fairly cohesive ball.

If a food processor is not used, place the flour and sugar in a mixing bowl. Add the butter and cut it in with two knives or a pastry blender until the mixture looks like coarse cornmeal. Add the water, stirring quickly with a fork.

Gather the dough into a ball and flatten it into a round disk one-inch thick. Wrap the dough in wax paper and chill for an hour or less.