The retrospective of FYCE offerings continues. This post – the infamous avocado and spaghetti recipe is from April, 2020:
Everyone either makes the best spaghetti sauce or they know someone who makes the best spaghetti sauce. They are all wrong because they don’t know me.
For this version, I went the lazy vegan way by using tomato paste rather than fresh tomatoes; but I also went the not-so-lazy vegan way by cooking it for more than 7 or 8 minutes.
Ingredients:
- Olive oil
- 1/2 onion chopped
- 6 cloves garlic sliced or chopped
- 1 can (369ml) tomato paste
- 2 or 3 bay leaves
- 1 tsp turmeric
- 1/2 tsp ground cumin
- 1 Tbsp basil
- 1/2 Tbsp oregano
- 1 brick extra firm tofu crumbled (or 340 grams ground beef or veggie ground)
- 1 cup mushrooms, chopped or sliced (optional)
- 1 cup green olives, chopped (optional)
- Avocado (optional)
- Salt & pepper
Instructions:
Put oil in saucepan set to medium heat. Add the onion and cook until soft (approx. 2 minutes). Add the garlic and cook for one more minute. Set the saucepan to low heat and add the tomato paste. Then slowly whisk in 2 1/2 cans of water until consistent. Add the bay leaves and stir occasionally until it comes to a low boil.
In the meantime, put oil and tofu/beef into a separate frying pan set to medium heat and cook (add the mushrooms if desired):
When the sauce comes to a low boil (approx. 25-30 minutes), add the turmeric, cumin, basil and oregano and continue to stir occasionally at low boil for 45 minutes to an hour.
In the meantime, and I know I swore that Deadsplinter would ALWAYS be ad-free, I use this amazing product for onion and garlic and a whole lot of other things, like the 1 cup of green olives:
Then stir the tofu/beef/mushroom mix into the saucepan with the olives. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Serve on noodles with a slice of avocado as I did a few weeks ago (shown in the header image) or serve over spaghetti squash as I did last week:
Cut spaghetti squash in half, lengthwise and gut out the guts. Put face down in water in a microwavable bowl and microwave for 8 minutes. Let cool enough to use a fork to scrape spaghetti-like squash.
I’m not convinced an avocado goes in spaghetti, but I’d be willing to give the sauce a try.
Came here to say the same thing, along with turmeric? I put the rest of those spices in mine along with thyme. I also like onions and bell peppers in my sauce.
ok boomer
Avocado is OK but I can’t abide treating tofu that way. Treat it like an extra mild mozzarella and serve it on the side, sliced, with salt, toasted walnuts and olive oil, optional basil and garlic.
Blasphemer!
I don’t cook the avocado…and it is delicious!
It’s…not just the avocado.
Hey Myo, do you have a vegetarian stroganoff recipe? My daughter used to love beef stroganoff but now is a pescatarian. I found an eggplant recipe I might try or just use fake beef & veg broth in my usual recipe.
I don’t but I can try to invent something…with no turmeric or avocado.
Don’t get me wrong, she loves both those things, just thought they were strange in spaghetti. I thought of posting my Indonesian shrimp curry or Hawaiian poke recipes next time I make them. Just need to actually take pictures & I don’t really measure stuff for poke.
Let’s hear it from Monique Judge:
https://www.theroot.com/1828025101
…eh…you can keep ’em?
Not spaghetti, and NOT vegan, but similar in the steps/process for sauce-making–suuuuper easy, just time-consuming…
I made this a couple nights ago;**
I forgot to get the fresh tomatoes, so I subbed out some additional Tomato Paste (a couple tablespoons more), and a decent handful of sundried tomatoes, and used two 28-oz cans of crushed (Red Gold) tomatoes instead of the Tomato sauce, ‘cuz I forgot *that* too😖
Also just dumped in dry basil until I liked the flavor/thought there was enough, because if dry herbs worked for Julia Child, I figured that Ethiopian Grandmas, Aunties, & Moms had probably done similar.
The Lasagna was GOOD, and if any of y’all have Berebere on hand, I’d HIGHLY recommend it!😁
It even turned out *perfectly* using no-boil noodles (the Barilla ones–because *again*–what I had on hand😉)
**the recipe was shared over on Twitter, in a random thread about Berebere, where we went down a bit of a Penzey’s rabbit-hole, and when I realized I had nearly everything to make it (only needed the coriander) it went on my list of “Things to make!”
https://www.penzeys.com/online-catalog/berbere-seasoning-blend/c-24/p-155/pd-s
Penzeys Berbere blend is great. If I may, try their shallot pepper blend. There is nothing I don’t want to put it in.
Oooh,I haven’t tried that one yet, butvwhen the stores fiiiinally open back up, I’ll be sure to check it out!😁🤗😃
(I’m lucky enough now, to live just a couple blocks from the Mpls one… which I LOVE, but also kiiiinda loathe a tiny bit, because now I’m constantly like, “Oooh, I need ____, I can just run over to Penzey’s!” Annnnnd no I can’t🙃
Although it IS better for my dwindling amount of space on the spice shelves in our kitchen🤣)
This looks & sounds GOOD, Myo!
And after my adventure making lasagna with the sauce *from scratch* the other night, it sounds like a good one to try!😉😁
I love seeing what other people cook. Thank you for this.
Who the eff puts an avocado in spaghetti?
…there only sounds like there’s an f in prophet, you know?
…what am I saying, of course you know that…so you clearly mean myo puts the f in prophet which I’m sure must be the avocado of compliments
…right?
It’s a matter of taste and by that I mean I’m an ARTIST
…try it sometime, boomer!
[Checks Deadsplinter for the first time all day]
“Green olives… the hell… squash… where is the… what the hell is an avocado doing…”
[Italian ancestors rise from grave and stare me]
Sorry, I have to go.
Classic. I laughed as soon as I saw the image.
That sauce looks OK to me, despite the avocados and cumin. Yes, I would eat that.
I love this repost!
I was expecting everyone to shit on my sauce (seriously try it!) but not the avocado.
There’s that avocado again.
369ml….huh
*runs google translate*
holy shit…thats like…2.5 of the biggest cans of tomato paste the supermarkets carry here
thats a lot of tomato paste
That’s what so irritating about metric. 369 ml is ~13 oz. It’s a very common measurement. But imagine: 358 ml? 391 ml? One of the good things (perhaps the only good thing) about Brexit is that there’s a proposal to go back to Imperial weights and measurements. Temps measured in Fahrenheit, distances measured in miles, things sold by pounds and ounces. The British did defeat Napoleon; there was no reason to adopt this metric nonsense 150+ years later.
I remember once I was driving through Delaware, which is a ridiculously tiny state, known chiefly as a tax haven/money launderer, and the incubator of the Alzheimer Patient in Chief, Joe Biden, and you’d see signs announcing upcoming exits or something and they seemed impossibly far away. That’s because, without warning, they had converted all the signs to kilometers. The next year I went back and they had torn those all down.
I went to college with a guy who was from Delaware. “Oh, that must be nice. So close to the Atlantic…”
“It’s a nice place to come from but an even better place to leave.”
eh…..its paste….paste is sold in grams here…lol
sauces are in ml
you know…so stupid number asides…..i first had to figure out how many grams a ml of tomato paste is…..
almost 1 turns out