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Cooking With Wine-Vegetarian Ragu Pasta

 

Welcome to our blog series on cooking with wine in which we continue our culinary adventure with a delicious Vegetarian Ragu Pasta. This is hearty comfort food at its best with lots of healthy ingredients. Ragu is traditionally a meat sauce but you’ll see how we’ve adapted it to vegetarian fare.

Before we begin, there’s one thing that we find really handy and that’s to know a few things up front. First, how long will it take to prep, cook, set aside, refrigerate, etc. before it’s ready to eat? Second, how many people will it serve? Lastly, the grocery list.

 

Nice to know details

As a general rule, set aside the following times:

  1. 30 minutes preparation
  2. 60 minutes cooking
  3. Serves 8 people

 

Grocery List

  • 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil
  • ½  teaspoon of sea salt
  • 1 yellow cooking onion
  • 4-5 medium carrots (1 cup when chopped)
  • 1 yam
  • 8-10 button mushrooms (2 cups when chopped)
  • 12-15 cremini mushrooms (2 cups when chopped)
  • 4-5 celery stalks (1 cup when chopped)
  • 6 garlic cloves
  • 156 millilitre can of tomato paste
  • 1 tablespoon of Italian Seasoning
  • ½ teaspoon of crushed red pepper flakes
  • ¼ teaspoon of black pepper
  • 1 cup of red wine
  • 1½  cups of vegetable broth
  • 796 millilitre can of diced tomatoes
  • 1¼ cup of lentils (green, red or both)
  • ½ cup of oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes
  • 2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar
  • 450 gram Fusili pasta
  • ½ cup hemp hearts
  • Lots of fresh parsley (1 cup when chopped)

 

Prepare the vegetables

Chop into ½-inch pieces:

  • ½ cup of oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes
  • 1 cup of each of yellow onion, carrots, celery and yam
  • 2 cups of each of button mushrooms and cremini mushrooms

Remove parsley from stems and roughly chop until you have 1 cup

Mince 6 cloves of garlic

 

Creating the Ragu

Just to be safe, it’s a good idea to have an extra bottle of the Amarone you’re using in the recipe. You might want to have a few sips during the cooking stage. Also, you’ll need a bottle to be served with dinner!

  • Place 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil, ½ teaspoon of sea salt and 1 cup of chopped onions in a large saucepan
  • Cook the over medium heat for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally
  • Add 1 cup of carrots and 1 cup of yam to the saucepan
  • Continue cooking for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally
  • Add 2 cups of button mushrooms, 2 cups of cremini mushrooms, 1 cup of celery and minced garlic to the saucepan
  • Continue cooking for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally
  • Add can of tomato paste. 1 tablespoon of Italian Seasoning, ¼ teaspoon of red pepper flakes and 1/8 teaspoon of fresh ground black pepper to the saucepan
  • Stir to mix well while cooking for 1 minute
  • Add 1 cup of red wine to the saucepan
  • Bring to a boil for 2 minutes
  • Add 1½ cups of vegetable broth, can of diced tomatoes and 1¼ cups of lentils to the saucepan
  • Stir to mix ingredients thoroughly
  • Reduce heat to medium-low, cover the saucepan and simmer for 40 minutes until lentils are tender
  • Add ½ cup of oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes and 2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar to the saucepan and stir

 

Making the pasta

  • Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil
  • Add pasta to the large pot and cook until al dente
  • Drain pasta

 

Serving

  • Place the Ragu in a large serving bowl
  • Add the pasta, ½ cup of hemp hearts and 1 cup of parsley
  • Stir and serve

 

Pairing

We recommend serving this meal with a bottle of your very own DIY craft red wine. It’s always best to serve the same wine used during cooking. This always helps to enhance both the flavours in the dish and also the wine.

 

Tips

  • We use our own no sodium vegetable broth from carrot tops/ends/gratings, onion skins/ends, potato/carrot/yam peelings and any other vegetable scraps boiled in water for 2-1 hours
  • Flat leaf parsley grows in abundance in our garden, which works beautifully in this recipe
  • This recipe works well with penne or shell pasta too – just make sure it’s a pasta that will gather up lots of the Ragu sauce

 

We hope you enjoy this Cooking With Wine – Vegetarian Ragu Pasta recipe.

 

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