Happy World Vegan Day!

I know, I know, I'm a few days late... But that doesn't mean I can't celebrate World Vegan Day everyday!

 World Vegan Day was officially on Monday, November 1st. John is at school until 4 on Monday, so that doesn't make it the best day for making exciting dinners. Instead we went to our favourite restaurant in Victoria, the Reef. The Reef is a Caribbean restaurant just downtown that is absolutely delicious. We shared chana salad, yam fries with mango chutney, and ital trini roti. Miam miam!*

On Tuesday, I had a bit more time for dinner prep and a leftover Jack'o'Lantern...

Smile while you still can, Mr. Pumpkin.

I was in a surprisingly ambitious mindset, so I decided to make homemade ravioli with pumpkin-cashew filling, and an alfredo style sauce!

Ingredients (filling)

-1 C. roasted pumpkin
-2 Tbsp. olive oil
-1/4 tsp nutmeg
-1/4 tsp. cinnamon
-1/4 tsp. cumin
-1/4 C. ground cashews
-salt and pepper to taste

1. Heat olive oil over medium heat in a large sauce pan. Add spices and ground cashews.
2. Stir in pumpkin, and cook until it's all mixed together and delicious smelling.
3. Set aside!
4. You should probably start boiling your water for your pasta. Big pot, bit of salt, bit of olive oil!


Here's the recipe for the pasta!

-1 1/3 C. all purpose flour
-2/3 C. amaranth flour
-1/2 tsp salt
-2 tsp. dried basil
-1/2 C. water
-1 tsp. olive oil

1. Sift together the dry ingredients, then add the oil and water and knead until you get a stiff dough.
2. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and roll it out as thin as you can with a rolling pin! I did mine in sections, which was a lot easier.
3. Cut your dough into squares/rectangles, each approximately the same size.
4. Put about 1 Tbsp pumpkin filling in the center of a square, place another square on top, and then pinch together until sealed.
5. Drop into your pot of already boiling, lightly salted water and cook for about 15 minutes. Stir once or twice to make sure they don't stick to the bottom!

For the sauce, I made a soy-free alfredo, using this recipe
-1/2 C. cashews
-1 tsp. lemon juice
-1 to 1 1/2 C. boiling water
-2 cloves garlic (you might want to saute these in a bit of olive oil first to bring out the flavour)
-1 Tbsp. olive oil
-2 Tbsp. nutritional yeast
-salt and pepper to taste

It's super easy! Just process the cashews in a food processor first, then transfer them to a blender
2. Add in 1/2 the water, blend until creamy. Add in the rest of the water, blend again.
3. Add the rest of the ingredients and blend until really smooth.
4. Put on pasta!

Phew! That's a lot of typing. It was worth it though, very delicious. Although rolling out the pasta with a rolling pin is not much fun - I put a pasta maker on my Christmas list!

Rowan plans this pumpkin's demise.

*I recently learned that this is how the French say "Yum yum", and I am trying to be more European.

Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

Ingredients:

-1 red pepper
-1 orange pepper
-2 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 onion
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 Tbsp basil
- 1 C. raw cashews
- 1 1/2 C. water
- 1/2 C veggie broth
- salt and pepper

Step 1: Preheat oven to 450° F. Cut peppers in half, core and seed them. Bake them for about 15-20 minutes.
Step 2: Meanwhile! Heat oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Saute onion and garlic until soft and translucent. (About 10 minutes)
(Also, you should probably start cooking your pasta around this time. We used rotini.)
Step 3: Meanwhile! Blend cashews and water in blender until smooth. Once your peppers are roasted (and chopped), and your onion/garlic is ready, add to blender. Add basil, broth, and blend until smooth.
Step 4: Heat in a saucepan and season to taste!
Step 5: Nom nom nom.

This sauce would also make a great alternative to regular tomato sauce on a pizza, or as a spread for grilled sandwiches!

On an unrelated note, we took Rowan to the Muttart Conservatory the other day. He was generally unenthused, but he woke up right before we left, so we got a few cute photos of him. This particular face is the precursor to the single eyebrow raise.