The Veganification! Begins

Hi and welcome, friends and enemies, to the first of an every-now-and-then sub-series, new to my blog in 2010: The Veganification!


That's right, I said The Veganification!


What is The Veganification! you might be wondering? And why should you care? All good questions. Here are the answers.


Because I had very little "serious" reading to do over Winter Break, and because I am easily distracted by shiny things, I bought and read a good number of glossy-covered, mainstream cooking magazines this winter. Gourmet, Imbibe, Bon Apetit, Martha Stewart's Living, Food+Wine (the latter two my mom gets in the mail) etc. It was so refreshing to read magazines that are written and published by people really truly exited by food and eating, and not trying to push some sort of socio-political agenda. No space wasted talking about which company is poking rabbits and pigs in inappropriate ways, or snarky op-ed pieces about feeling smug at the family Christmas dinner table. Just entertaining articles about trends in food, cooking, spirits, and mixology that focus on taste and presentation rather than morals. I'm far more interested in the bottle vs. can debate in the world of beer than I am in tofu vs. tempeh arguments.

As such, I'm letting my VegNews subscription expire and getting Bon Apetit and Gourmet instead. And (one of) my New Year's Resolutions is to veganify at least one recipe from all of these non-veg magazines a month. And I don't mean just swapping out real dairy for the soy-based stuff. I'm talking about not being daunted by a recipe with great flavor potential just because the main ingredient is meat. Or a good dessert that relies on heavy cream and egg whites. Moroccan Beef Tagine? Poblano Albondingos? Sour-Orange Yucatan Chickens? Shitake-and-Scallion Shrimp Lo-Mein? Apricot & Basil Shortbread? Coconut Cake with Chocolate Chunks? Chocolate-Nut Tart with Dried Fruit & Clotted Cream?



Bring it on.



So, here is the first veganified meal of 2010. I decided to try this sauce first, as my mother was making veal meatballs (I don't care how vegan I get, I will always love the smell of cooking veal) and this dish originally called for veal shoulders. It's a "notable dark and glossy ragout, the constituents of which**" are as follows:




Not-Veal Pasta Sauce
from Food+Wine, October 2009


1/4 cup olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
4-5 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 1/2 teaspoons ground fennel (I ground whole seeds)
1 1/2 cups dry red wine (I used Terra d'Oro 2005 Amador Zinfandel)
Two 28-ounce cans Italian whole tomatoes, drained and chopped (see note)
4 cups vegetable puree/stock (see note)
1 1/2 tablespoons minced rosemary


Note: Even if you can't find the whole Italian-style tomatoes (I found mine in the specialty-foods section of Kroger), make the effort to drain and chop whole regular tomatoes. There's too much liquid in the pre-chopped ones and this is a thick sauce. For the vegetable stock, I used my mom's new immersion blender to blend leftover vegetable soup. This resulted in a creamy vegetable puree rather than a traditional stock. Since there isn't any meat in this recipe to absorb extra liquid, I think this helped thicken the sauce. If you use broth, you may want to boil the sauce a little longer to reduce it. Maybe disolve some cornstarch in the broth before adding it to the mix. Or just make some soup and puree it.


In a large soup pot or casserole dish, heat the oil over medium heat.
Add the onions, garlic, fennel, coriander, and cook over medium-low heat for 5 minutes or until the onions are translucent.
Add the wine and bring the mixture to a boil. Continue to boil until reduced to 1/3 cup. This should take 5-8 minutes.
Add the tomatoes and cook for another 5 minutes over medium high heat.
Add the veggie puree and rosemary. Return to a boil. Let boil for about ten minutes or until the sauce reduces a little more.
Reduce heat to low, partially cover the pot and simmer for about 20 minutes.


Serve the sauce over a hearty pasta (rigatoni, fettucini, pappardelle) with a big room temp glass of Remirez de Ganuza 2001 Rioja, one of the best reds I've had in a long time and totally worth the price. It's strong enough to hold up against the spice of the sauce, but not in an over-powering way.


And since the non-veggies in the house all went back for seconds, I consider The Veganification! a resounding success.


**Bonus The Veganification! points if you can place the quote. Trade them in for cool The Veganification!! merchandise, homemade veganified snacks and my continued admiration!!**