Photos from the Book
Pastas
Low Carb Vegan Cooking
More recipes and articles at Low Carb Vegan Lab.
Photos for the Book:
The pasta recipes rely on shirataki, which is the noodle form of konjac (Japanese name: konnyaku). Konjac is gelatinous and somewhat translucent, produced from the corm of a Southeast Asian tuber. Konjac is rich in a dietary fiber, glucomannan, which has very few calories. Konjac can be used as noodles, rice or blocks (to be cut up into strips or cubes), and produces a strong sense of fullness. It is actually mostly water, and acts well as a ‘sponge’ by taking in the flavors of surrounding ingredients.
An alternative of course to konjac pasta is ye olde noodled zucchini, which the sauces work just as well on.
Carbonara #1
Nope, “carbonara” is not Italian for “carb sauce,” especially in this version.
Carbonara #2
Bolognese Pasta
Pesto Pasta
Creamy Alfredo Sauce
Ground Beef Stroganoff
Marinara Sauce
Marinara Pasta
Chorizo Pasta
Red Pepper Sauce Pasta
For extra heat, add the crushed red pepper to taste but also consider the taste of others you might feed this to, with respect to their Scoville scale tolerance. A little bit goes a long way, and a ‘strong hint’ of crushed chilis is all that’s needed. You can complexify that strong hint by using a chili-flavored olive oil instead, which will make people go, “Huh, what’s that chili combo?”
With the red pepper and parsley flavors, you totally do not need to sprinkle vegan grated parmesan cheese onto it.
Spinach Lasagna
Place the thawed previously frozen spinach into a large colander, and press hard to squeeze the water out. It’s a good idea to also let the spinach get room temperature, because at fridge temperature, wow your hands will be freezing after pressing the water out. As a good vegan, you might be tempted to drink the resultant pressed spinach water, but I’m not. Move the compacted spinach to a very large mixing bowl.
Drain the water from the 2 tofu packages and add the tofu to the mixing bowl with the spinach, then smash it all up, stirring and swirling them together. The key thing here is to trick the mind into believing visually that the tofu looks just like ricotta cheese, because spinach and ricotta is an actual culinary thing, and like ricotta, the tofu is white and full of protein. So, try to mix these two ingredients up as much as possible until you believe it looks like spinach and ricotta. Add in the minced garlic and dried spices while producing this optical illusion.
