This pasta recipe is a variation on a vegan mushroom stroganoff recipe by From My Bowl but with less mushrooms, added vegetables, and an attempt at a cheese-like rather than cream-like coating. The acronym may be ESPN, but it doesn’t take an athlete to make. If you’re anything like me, this simple combination of pasta and produce will become a go-to lunch or dinner when you need something hearty and wholesome. You can eat it warm if it’s cold or cold if it’s warm and it’s gotten me through some tough times at both temperatures.
Ingredients
- Approx. 3.5 cups of water
- Approx. 3 cups of pasta (I prefer using macaroni, fusilli, or penne, but I’ve done it with angel hair as well)
- 1 carrot
- ½-1 whole oz can of chickpeas, according to taste
- Spinach or mushrooms as desired (I recommend around 4 average-sized white mushrooms, two or three handfuls of spinach)
- Approx. ⅓-½ cup peanut butter (can be replaced with a nut-free butter or other nut butter if desired, but peanut butter has my personal preferred texture)
- Copious sprinkling of nutritional yeast
- Garlic powder, pepper, and other seasonings as desired
- A quarter onion or more to taste (optional)
- 1-2 cloves of garlic, minced (optional)
Supplies
- Cutting board
- Knife
- Stirring spoon
- Spatula or regular metal spoon for extracting peanut butter
- Optional microwave-safe containers for expediting the water heating
Instructions
- Wash and slice the carrots, mushrooms, and other produce.
- Add the water to the pot with some garlic powder and pepper if desired. You can speed up the heating by microwaving the water for about 2.5 minutes or heating it in a kettle.
- While pre-heating the water, you can saute some onions in the bottom of the pot on medium or high heat. Once the onions are translucent, turn off the heat and add the water. Mix the onions around in the water so they don’t stick. Around this time, take your peanut butter jar out of the fridge if it’s been refrigerated so the peanut butter is more malleable once you add it.
- Wait for the pot to make threatening noises, shake, and release steam out of both sides of the lid, indicating that it has reached a boil.
- Add the pasta to the water. Water should cover the pasta by around an inch or so.
- Add in your vegetables, mushrooms, and desired quantity of beans. Stir for about a minute after turning the heat down to medium. Cover and turn on a timer for about 15 minutes or about 5 more minutes than the pasta cook time on the pasta bag (whichever is longer) because this is a no-drain recipe with a lower food-to-water ratio. Keep stirring every few minutes to make sure that you don’t get pasta sticking to the bottom of the pot.
- Test to see if the pasta is soft enough for you. If not, stir and wait another minute. Turn off the heat and continue to step 8 when it is soft enough.
- Extract ⅓ cup of peanut butter or thereabouts from your jar with a spoon or spatula and use that doohickey to stir peanut butter around the pot so all the pasta is evenly coated in it.
- Pour a large heaping (around ¼-½ a cup, depending on your preference) of nutritional yeast over the peanut-butter-pilled pasta and mix around the pot similarly.
- Add salt, pepper, and other seasonings to taste and serve once the pasta has reached room temperature (moving it out of the pot into a non-cold container will help it cool faster). Once it is cool enough to eat, you can serve.
