30 Minute Ragù alla Bolognese

I adore lasagna. Creamy, meaty, savoury, delicious sauces held in sheets of silky pasta... is there anything better? I rarely eat it, though, cause "real" ragù alla Bolognese takes 2 to 3 hours to make, and while the Homecooker means I don't have to stand around and stir it myself, that's a long time to wait! Is it worth it? Yes. Can I be bothered 90% of the time? Heck no.

Anyway, the other day after a tough day at work, all I wanted was lasagna, but after spending all day in the kitchen, I didn't want to spend all night either. A conversation a few months ago with Matt on how he was tweaking Bryanna Clark Grogan's amazing ragù recipe to make it a bit quicker had given me a few ideas, so I thought I'd give it my own shot.

After a couple more attempts, I think I finally cracked it. While this doesn't have the depth or complexity of the traditional ragù (which I'll still be making for special occasions), the speed at which it can be made more than makes up for that, and means you can have lasagna assembled and ready to go in the oven in about 45 minutes (if you make the béchamel in between stirs of the ragù, you can probably get it in the oven in more like 35, and have your lasagna (all from scratch!) in just over an hour!).

A few notes before we start:

• Watch the salt! You'll be adding a lot of salty ingredients into the sauce from the beginning, so refrain from seasoning the sauce until the very end.
• This makes more than enough for a mini lasagna (I used an 8" baking dish), so you can have lasagna for dinner and used the leftover ragù for lunch or dinner the following night. If you're making lasagna for a crowd, I would double the recipe.
• To make wheat/gluten-free, use gluten-free soy sauce or tamari, and double-check the ingredients in the TVP (some brands contain gluten).
• In order to speed up the process, you'll be cooking this on a much higher heat than you generally would, so don't leave it alone!

30 Minute Ragù alla Bolognese
Based on Bryanna Clark Grogan's Ragù alla Bolognese from Nonna's Italian Feast

1. To a medium saucepan over medium heat, add 1 tablespoon each olive oil and vegan butter and 1 teaspoon of sesame oil.
2. Roughly dice 1 carrot, 1 red onion, 1 brown onion, 6 cloves garlic, and 2 stalks of celery and add this to the pan. Increase heat to medium-high and saute, stirring frequently, until vegetables are softened.
3. Add 2 cups TVP mince, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, 1 tablespoon nutritional yeast, 1 teaspoon dried rosemary, 1 teaspoon dried thyme, 1 chicken-style broth cube (or 1 tablespoon chicken-style broth powder), and 400g tomato paste. Stir together, then allow to sit for a minute or two before stirring again. Continue until mix has nearly dried out and is sticking to the bottom of the pan.
4. Deglaze pan with 1/2 cup dry red wine (you can use a dry white in a pinch) and reduce heat to medium. Stir until the wine has evaporated, then add 1/2-1 cup stock (homemade or store-bought), just enough to thin out of the ragù into an appropriately wet sauce. Stir in 1/2 cup soy milk (or other neutral-flavoured milk; don't use rice milk as it will add too much sweetness) and cook for a minute or two until it's combined. If sauce it too thin, reduce the sauce, stirring constantly, until it is the thickness you like. Season with salt and pepper; your sauce is done!

Either place on top of freshly cooked pasta and eat straight away, or use to assemble lasagna. If you're making lasagna, you can use Bryanna's delicious béchamel.

Enjoy!

Incidentally, if you don't own Nonna's Italian Kitchen, RUN DON'T WALK and get yourself a copy. It is a book that I go back to again and again for both recipes and inspiration.

Vegan Savoury Crepe/Omelette

I threw the original version of these together when morning when I needed to bring together an odd combination of leftovers and nearly-past-it vegetables I'd salvaged from the bottom of my fridge. Though I generally just guess the proportions when I make them these days, when I presented my vegan breakfast class at Laneway Learning last year, I realised I should probably have an actual recipe for people to follow, so here it is!

These aren't exactly like an omelette in taste or texture, and also in that you wrap it around the fillings rather than folding them into the batter, but what else do you call it? Most importantly, it's super delicious. Even better, it's a great way of repurposing leftovers, can be throw together in about 10 minutes (great for lazy mornings and hangovers alike), and the batter will last in the fridge for up to a week (possibly even longer).

Leftovers from making tacos or nachos are great for fillings, otherwise any mix of veggies sauteed are equally great. You don't need to do anything too fancy. Cook the fillings beforehand and set aside covered so they stay warm.

Blend (in an upright blender or using an immersion blender):

300g firm silken tofu
200g soy milk
80g besan (chickpea) flour
30g cornstarch (cornflour)
20g olive oil
6g nutritional yeast flakes
Big pinch each of salt, pepper, oregano, garlic powder

Heat a non-stick (or very well seasoned cast iron) over medium heat. Grease with the fat of your choosing, then ladle about 1/2 cup - 1 cup of the batter into the pan; use the back of the ladle of cup to evenly spread the batter over the pan. Place a lid on the pan: glass lids are useful because you can see when it's drying, otherwise check after a couple of minutes to see if the top of the crepe has dried out a bit. Once the top has dried out, flip the crepe over and cook briefly on the other side. Adjust the heat of the pan as necessary to make sure they don't burn.

Set cooked crepes onto plates, and cover half with the filling of choice. Fold the free half over the top, dust with paprika and serve!

I'm about halfway through my Barcelona post (I went again this year) so, once again, I'm posting a recipe to fill in the meantime! Hopefully that'll be up soon, or I'll just have to share more recipes!

Easy Chocolate Mousse

There are millions of vegan chocolate mousses out there and they vary from the ridiculously easy to the stupidly overcomplicated (and, usually, with very little payoff). Similarly to brownies, there is a lot disagreement among what people expect from a mousse: some people want super fluffy (the texture I associate with that creepy brown paste served at fast food "restaurants"), others want something rich but still light, as though someone put chocolate in a cream gun. Other people don't care as long as it's chocolate.

This is an incredibly dense chocolate mousse; I'd love to say that a couple of spoonfuls is enough but yeah, that's a lie. My one big tip is: don't tell people what's in it until they've eaten it! And then they'll be amazed and you'll give them the recipe and they'll go home and make it and the deception will spread across the world...

HA.

The craziest thing about all that is that most people don't know what's in mousse anyway, but if you give the slightest hint that it's not "normal", they'll freak out. "You mean it doesn't contain BUTTER?!"

Anyway...

The easiest way to do this is using a stick blender, but you can always use an upright blender if you don't have one (but then go out and get one, seriously, why don't you have a stick blender). You can easily double the recipe, but keep an eye on the size of the container; the first time I made this, it ended up about half a centimetre below the top of the container, which made blending... very nerve-wracking.

In an appropriately sized, microwave-safe container (pick depth over width; an 8 cup pyrex is a good size), blend until completely smooth:

300g silken tofu (I use Morinaga tetrapack tofu which says it's 298g)
150g chocolate coconut or soy milk (if you don't have chocolate milk, you can just use plain)
50g liquid sweetener (I used golden syrup; using liquid sweetener means you don't have to worry about granulated sweetener dissolving)
5g vanilla extract
Pinch of salt

Add 300g good quality dark chocolate (I use Callebaut). Microwave for 1 minute on high, stir well, then microwave for 30 second intervals (stirring well each time) until the chocolate is almost completely melted (chocolate will melt at around 36 degrees, so it really doesn't need to be that warm to melt properly; 1-1:30min should be enough). Stir until the mixture is a uniform colour. Blend with the stick blender for a couple of seconds (this will pull air into it and give it that sort-of Aero texture), then cling wrap and place in the fridge OR distribute to smaller serving glasses, cling wrap them and then refridgerate. Small servings should set in one to two hours to set, but overnight/overday is best to be totally sure (and a must if you're just going to do it in the one container and then eat it with a spoon, which is what I do).

If you're feeling particularly decadent, use it to ice a chocolate cake. And then thank me.

And you're done! Seriously, that's it.

I will be back soon with seriously belated travel-related posts, or maybe another recipe so I can just keep on delaying actually finishing the travel posts... we shall see!