Spaghetti-Nos with Mini Lentil Meatballs (From The PPK)

I have been dreaming about this recipe for the past month, ever since I saw it over on The Post Punk Kitchen. Finally, I could wait no longer and I gathered the last ingredients necessary to round out this recipe.

The idea of this is to veganize a classic from many people's childhood: Spaghetti-O's and meatballs. I served mine with strawberry Kool-Aid, as pictured above, to really bring home the kid meal feel.

I'm not going to re-post the recipe here, but you can see it over on The Post Punk Kitchen. The only big modifications I made was to substitute the oregano with thyme and mini wagon wheels as my pasta rather than the "traditional" Anellini style.

Short review, delicious! I would probably make the mini lentilballs even smaller next time, and I would really like to try the Anellini style pasta to see the difference. The mini wagon wheels were great, but they are also a little thick for these purposes.

But don't worry! I have plenty of pictures.

Here are two of my prep counter, complete with laptop on the site with the recipe. (The container that says couscous is actually holding the vital wheat gluten.)






And a couple pics of the mini lentilballs before cooking:




And one last closeup of the finished product:

Vegan Pho With Tofu and Garnishes

Pho is a Vietnamese noodle soup consisting of a very flavorful broth usually made from beef. Thanks to a generous co-worker who provided me with a recipe and some ingredients, I made a vegan version.

A quick note: I didn't have a lot of whole spices, so I subbed ground. I would not necessarily recommend this but it still worked out great.

Recipe: Reposted from Food.com, with some changes in directions by me as well as substitutes in bold and italics
BROTH
1 small unpeeled onion, quartered -- I used an onion that was about 91g
2 unpeeled shallots, halved
8 garlic cloves, halved -- I peeled these even though the recipe didn't specify
Ginger, coarsely sliced -- I wound up using about 1/8 of ground ginger because I did not have fresh ginger. I would recommend 1 inch of fresh ginger.
2 [3 inch] cinnamon sticks -- Again, I only had ground, so I used 1t ground cinnamon
2 star anise pods -- I subbed 1t ground star anise
4 cloves -- I subbed 1t ground cloves
8c clear veg stock
3T Soy Sauce
salt, to taste

SOUP:
1lb Rice Noodles
8oz fried tofu or cooked seitan
6 scallions, thinly sliced
1.5c bean sprouts
1 lime, sliced into wedges
basil or mint or cilantro (or all of them); a big handful left whole
hoisin sauce, to taste
sriracha chili sauce, to taste

1. In a large pot, heat to medium-high heat and dry roast onion, shallots, garlic, ginger, cinnamon, star anise, and cloves. Stir occasionally until vegetables begin to char. I would recommend leaving the spices out until the vegetables start to char and then adding the spices in. I burned a few spices before the vegetables could char, but the broth still tasted great in the end. Prep the other vegetables/garnishes during this time as well.

2. Add the veg stock and soy sauce, bring to boil. Then lower heat to simmer, cover for 20-25 minutes. Start another pot boiling to cook the rice noodles.

3. Strain broth into a clean pot and discard the solids. Taste and add salt if necessary, set aside. Check noodles and drain them, rinsing thoroughly. Make a plate for the garnishes. I set mine up into little bowls for some items and larger items just on a plate, like bean noodles and chopped bok choy.

4. Put noodles into bowls; ladle the broth over the noodles. Garnish as you see fit. Enjoy.

The broth is the key along with a bunch of garnishes to really punch up the flavors. Fresh herbs and bean sprouts along with lime juice and soy sauce makes for a fantastic meal. I also added some fried tofu, but mock duck or other faux meats would work great as well.

Above is a photo of my garnish plate: bean sprouts, sliced jalapenos, cilantro, scallions, basil, and chopped bok choy are the ones I had around.

Below is my soup bowl, fixed up with everything. Rice noodles [I used larger flat rice noodles rather than the vermicelli style I usually get] with the broth ladled over it and then I topped mine with sautéed mushrooms, fried tofu, and all of the fixin's from the garnish plate along with some lime juice and shoyu.