Creamy Bechamel Sauce Pasta and Veggies

This sauce is actually very easy to prepare as a vegan sauce, but in this case I added cheese to it because I wanted it to be a little more decadent. If you want to make it vegan you can leave out the cheese entirely or add nutritional yeast to emulate the flavor and texture.
I love this sauce because I love alfredo, but it is often too heavy for me. This is a nice, light alternative.


What you will need:

3 tablespoons of butter, margarine or oil
1/3 of a medium yellow onion, diced
5 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 tablespoon of basil
2 cups cups of unsweetened almond milk (or whatever kind of milk you use)
1/4-1/3 of a cup of rice flour
Salt
Pepper
Paprika
**Optional:
Cayenne
1/4 cup grated parmesan
1/4 cup grated asiago
(or 1/2 cup nutritional yeast if our preference is vegan)

Serve with:
1 lb gluten free pasta
Various vegetables, chopped (today I used zucchini, spinach, onions, tomatoes)

Optional Garnishes:
Chopped basil
Grated parmesan
Truffle oil

Start by melting your butter in a shallow sauce pan on medium.

Saute your onions for a few moments in the melted butter then add garlic. And basil. Allow ingredients to cook and brown.

Once your base has browned, add 1 and 1/2 almond milk and whisk (you will want to use a whisk from this point on)

In a separate bowl, mix the rice flour with the remainder of the almond milk, about 1/2 cup with the whisk. By whisking the flour separately in a bowl with cool milk, you are less likely to get lumps. Once the flour-milk mixture is smooth, add it into the milk mixture on the stove, whisking constantly. It will thicken as it heats up.

Continually whisking allow the sauce to thicken over medium to medium low heat for about 5-7 minutes. Then turn to medium low and add your grated cheese (or nutritional yeast or omit if this is a vegan recipe) and continue to whisk while simmering for about 3-5 minutes.You'll now have a thicker, smoother sauce forming.

Taste your sauce at this point, if you want it to be saltier add a pinch of salt or more cheese (though this will make it thicker) I like mine with a bite, so I had black pepper and paprika, sometimes a pinch of cayenne. Let it remain covered on low heat, stirring or whisking periodically until you are ready to serve.

For the rest of the recipe, boil water for pasta and cook as per the directions.

Saute or roast your vegetables, depending on how much time you have and what types of vegetables you use. Peas, broccoli, greens, carrots, tomatoes, summer squash etc. all make great vegetables to compliment this dish.

In this case, I used onions, zucchini, spinach and tomatoes.

Saute the onions until translucent, then add the chopped zucchini.

Once the zucchini becomes soft, add the spinach and tomatoes, allowing the spinach to wilt over low heat and the tomatoes to release their juices.

When your pasta is through cooking toss the veggies, pasta and sauce altogether in a pan.

Serve immediately, garnish with fresh grated cheese, freshly chopped basil and a sprinkle of truffle oil. MMMMMmm!

Marinara ala Sacchitella

You know, when you are Italian everything "is aboutta-da-sauce." So, growing up, there were two different sauces; there was the simple, elegant sauce my grandmother made, and...the sauce my dad made.

The sauce my dad made defied my grandmother's traditional recipe, which was my dad's underlying purpose I believe, because he put everything-- I mean everything-- in his sauce. He had sort of a if-one-thing-then-why-not-ten attitude in the kitchen. His marinara included tomatoes, onions, peppers, mushrooms, olive oil, barbecue sauce, honey, miso, wine, soy sauce, every spice in our spice cabinet...the list goes on. And once, he even put (I wish I was kidding) corn flake IN his sauce. I repeat, IN the sauce: IN it.

He also rebelled against tradition and didn't always pound his chicken flat when making chicken parmesan, so when he served his chunky breaded and fried chicken with his eclectic-flavored tomato sauce, it was more reminiscent of chicken nuggets with some kind of sweet-sour dipping sauce you get from a fast food joint.

(Rene if you are reading this, I know you are laughing really hard right now-- we used to beg our mom when our dad wasn't home just to make us sauce out of the can, we would DAYDREAM about Ragu because it was so different than what our dad served us so often!)

So now that I am an adult and don't have to force myself to eat things I don't like so that I may get up from the table, I have gone back to honoring my grandmother's way of doing things, which I always liked better, anyway.

My grandmother is a simple, woman from a farming family in Sicily. She makes things simply. This sauce is simple. And delicious.



For this family-inspired marinara you will need:

Olive oil
Half of once large yellow onion, peeled and diced
8 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
Dried marjoram and basil
Two 32 ounce cans of organic** whole, peeled tomatoes (I am a stickler for buying all things organic, but with everything BUT I really, really push for people to make sure that mass-produced things, like canned tomatoes are ESPECIALLY high quality, they are even better if you buy them in the jar, but if I bought jarred tomatoes all of the time I might go bankrupt)
Salt


First, coat your sauce pan lightly with olive oil, turn up to medium high and saute your onions until they are translucent, about 5-7 minutes. Turn the heat down to medium and add your garlic. Saute altogether briefly, about a minute, until the garlic starts to soften.

Next, add 1/2 tablespoon of marjoram and 1 tablespoon of basil. Mix up with the onion-garlic mixture. Then add both of your cans of whole tomatoes and if you feel that you need more volume, 1/2 of a cup of water.

With a potato masher (which I do not have!) or a heavy-duty whisk, mash your chunks of tomato into the sauce, while the pan is still on medium heat. 

Once your sauce is a more even consistency, add salt to your taste liking and cover to let it simmer on low for at least 30 minutes-- you can let it simmer on low all day if you would like, my grandma did.

If you like a really garlicky sauce, add 1/2 of the garlic at the beginning and save 1/2 to put in just for the simmering at the end, this will give the sauce a little more zip.

Enjoy with pasta-- or in my next recipe, in lasagna!

xoxo

Grandma Sackley's Chicken Soup

When my grandfather, Tomaso came to this country from Amalfi Coast of Italy, his last name was 'Sacchitella.' Italians at the time were looked down upon and he came here to make a better life, so my grandfather 'Americanized' his name and became Thomas Sackley. He then met my grandmother,  Giuseppina Genuso and they married and were known as Thomas and Josephine Sackley.

My grandmother, who is still alive, and tougher than ever bless her soul, made this for us if we weren't feeling well. My grandmother is neither vegan nor gluten free, so neither is this soup and it's better that way.

You will need:
8 cups of broth, chicken broth or your homemade vegetable broth
2 medium chicken breasts, or about 1.5 lbs of chicken (you can use thighs or any part you would prefer)
1 onion, diced
5 garlic cloves, minced
2 large carrots, diced
1/2 of a bunch of celery, diced
2 cups of kale, cut into very**thin strips
1 cup of diced tomatoes
1 lb of ancini de pepe (or any other pasta you would like, if you want it to be gluten free you can do gluten free pasta, rice or quinoa...but I will not change my grandma's recipe in my own kitchen: NEVER!)
Salt
Pepper
Marjoram

First, put the diced onion, minced garlic and your chicken (do not cut or fiddle with them, just put them in whole) into your 8 cups of broth on the stove over medium high heat. Bring to a boil and then turn to medium and let it simmer for 45 minutes to an hour. This will cook the chicken and infuse your broth with tastiness.

After 45min/1 hour, remove your chicken from the broth and let cool on a plate. While the chicken cools, put the diced carrot, diced celery, chopped kale,  a dash of salt, pepper, two tablespoons of marjoram and the diced tomatoes into the broth, which should still be on medium heat. Likely, your broth has cooked down quite a bit, close to half of the original amount your started with-- if this is the case add 3 or 4 more cups of water or broth while the vegetables cook.

Cook the veggies and soup on medium heat for 15 minutes, or until the carrots begin to soften.

When the chicken is cool, begin to shred it with a fork and your fingers. 

Put the chicken back into the soup once it is shredded and turn the heat to low or medium low. 

Start your water boiling for the pasta, in my case the ancini de pepe. I prefer these little pasta pearls because of their pleasing texture, you don't often get to have tiny chewy pasta balls. They will boil for about 8 minutes to be al dente: perfecto!

Spoon a heaping ladle of pastina and soup into your bowl and serve. (I don't add the pastina directly into the big pot of soup until I am ready to store the leftovers in the fridge, usually. This recipe makes enough for about 10-12 servings so you are definitely going to have leftovers.)

Garnish with a tiny pit of parsley and Parmesan cheese if you so desire.

Enjoy!! :)