Nik's Vegetarian "Meat" Sauce

Sorry about the stove...if I'd know you were coming over... ;)

So I thought it’d be nice, after all the flurry of the Pledge, to post about…food. Remember when we used to talk about food? Me too! Let’s start doing that again!

This is a quick one but, as always, there’s a story.

My youngest child has decided to become vegetarian. This is not the first time she’s done this. She’s never much cared for meat, especially meat that looks like meat. It bothers her deeply to think that she’s consuming an animal.

While I’m not vegetarian I respect the fact that she (at 12 years old) came to that decision for herself. But life is not easy for a vegetarian kid living in a meat consuming household. Very often it was hard to find that wonderful place in the middle of the Venn diagram that is my oldest child, a self-proclaimed “meatitarian” and my youngest.

But recently – EUREKA! – I found a ray of hope. Quite to my surprise my oldest likes Boca Burgers. That brings us to last night, when I wanted to make ONE dinner that feels like dinner. The eldest had been wanting spaghetti. While I could have made a veggie spaghetti (and grumbled while the oldest picked out most of the veggies and fed them to our beloved Basset Hound when she thought I wasn’t looking), I decided to try to build upon her like of Boca meat by using Boca crumbles instead of meat.

(NOTE: This isn’t a review for Boca products, but you can look them up for yourself here.)

Here’s the recipe. After I’ll tell you how it was received.

Nik’s Vegetarian Spaghetti & “Meat” Sauce

Ingredients:

• 1 small onion, diced
• 1 green pepper, diced
• 1 clove garlic minced (or one heaping tsp of jarred minced garlic)
• 12 oz. Boca crumbles (they come in a 12 oz. bag)
• 1 jar low-sugar spaghetti sauce (I usually get the most basic kind and doctor it up myself, as you’ll see below)
• 1 tsp. Italian seasoning (or, if you don’t have that but have dried basil, the same amount)
• ½ tsp. red pepper flakes (less or none if you don’t like spicy stuff)

Optional (and had it just been me and The Younger, I would have used), a variety of colorful diced veggies like zucchini, yellow squash, red peppers, eggplant, really anything!

Directions:

Spray a pan with nonstick cooking spray, set it over medium heat and allow it to get hot.

Add onions and peppers (and any other veggies you’re using) and saute about 2-3 minutes, until they begin to soften.

Add the Boca crumbles and stir into the veggie mixture. Allow it to cook about 3-4 minutes.

Add spaghetti sauce and seasonings and stir. Bring it to a boil, then drop the heat down to medium-low, allowing it to simmer about 10-15 minutes more. The sauce should be a deeper shade of red when finished.

NOTE: This can be made with whatever ground meat substitute you like. I am trying to watch my younger daughter’s soy intake to make sure she doesn’t just eat soy as a meat replacement. I know that’s a concern for some of you as well.

NOW…I served this to them atop whole-wheat thin spaghetti. I always eat just the sauce, chili-style, with tons of grated Parmesan on top.

The Elder? She loved it! Interestingly, I didn’t tell her it was vegetarian. The fact that her sister was eating it should have clued her in but…14 year-olds are sometimes self-absorbed, so what can we do? I’m just glad I have a good fall-back dinner everyone can eat!

Nik's Secret Sauce

I'll replace this with a better picture when...ah, hell, who am I kidding???

Sorry for the ghetto fab pic. I didn't mean this to be a blog post. The other day I posted a pic of my lunch in reaction to a question I get a lot: "What do you use in place of spaghetti noodles?"

While it is true you can use spaghetti squash or alternate noodles, I prefer to cut out the middle man and just have my sauce straight up.

I love this sauce because it's so good nobody ever seems to notice there are a ton of veggies and no beef!

Nik's Secret Sauce ("Shhhh!")

Ingredients

• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 small green pepper, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• Any other finely chopped veggies you like (I have random zucchini and red peppers in there too)
• 1 lb. lean ground turkey
• 2 Turkey Italian sausages, casings removed (I use spicy but you can use mild or sweet if you like that better)
• 2 oz. tomato paste
• 1 jar of your favorite spaghetti sauce (I use the Hunt's kind that comes in a can and is a dollar. I get the Garlic/Onion flavor.)
• A pinch of each of the following: salt, pepper, Italian spice

Directions:

In a pan sprayed with nonstick cooking spray over medium heat, sautee onions and peppers (and random veggies) until soft, then add garlic and sautee until fragrant (about 3 minutes).

Add turkey and sausages and brown them (yes, you have to get in there and break up those sausages!) until fully cooked. 

Stir in the tomato paste until fully incorporated and then add tomato sauce. Turn DOWN the heat (the sauce should be be thick). If you are feeding a crowd, add about 1/2 c. of water or so to thin it out. Otherwise, I made this recipe to be sort of like "spaghetti chili" since I don't eat it with anything else.

Allow it to simmer on low heat another 5 minutes or so. It's even better the next day!

My family loves this sauce (and they are not ground turkey eating folk, please believe!). My stepdad covers his sauce (atop a mountain of what he doesn't notice is whole wheat pasta) in mountains of Parmesan cheese (cuz he's 6'7 with perfect metabolism) and goes to TOWN!