From: Linda McCartney’s Home Cooking, p. 115
A quick pasta sauce with fresh herbs and cottage cheese.
I made this pasta as a quick lunch for my daugher and myself. As we both do not like cottage cheese so much, I used cream cheese instead and reduced the amount to a total of 3tbsp. I also reduced the amount of olive oil to 1 tbsp. and added some cooking water from the pasta to make a smooth sauce.
From: Linda McCartney’s Home Cooking, p. 149
This is the first dish I cooked in the New Year. And as it is “Veganuary“, I decided to cook only vegan recipes or recipes that can be adapted to be vegan this month.
It is a great recipe for a tasty and easy Bolognaise Sauce. Both my children and husband agreed that this is a recipe that should be cooked VERY often ‒ and my son showed some interest in learning how to make this sauce by himself.
I served the sauce with spaghetti and a spoonful of “vegan parmesan” ‒ just great!
Gluten-Free: Make sure the TVP mince you use is gluten-free and use gluten-free spaghetti.
From: Linda McCartney´s Home Cooking, p. 57
This soup really surprised me as it has a very creamy consistency I would not have thought possible for a soup that does not use any dairy products. The secret is blending half of the soup after the cooking time- the white beans will work the magic. Definitely a recipe to make it into my repertoire.
Gluten-free: Use gluten-free pasta. I tried some red lentil pasta in this soup but found that the lentil taste was too strong. I would recommend using gluten-free pasta made from corn flour.
From: Linda McCartney´s Home Cooking, p. 84
This recipe reminds me of one of my gransmother´s recipes. She would make a large tray of Baked Macaroni Cheese whenever a lot of people came round for dinner or lunch. So this recipe is definitely one with lots of memories of family get-togethers, and of chatter and laughs around a big table. She would serve it with some carrot salad with chopped apple and a sweet lemon juice and honey dressing.
When I tried this recipe on my family, we found that the quantities used were too little for us- I would say this recipe serves 2-3.
Variations: Adding 1/2 tsp. of smoked paprika powder and 1/2 tsp. of sweet paprika powder gives more flavour and reminds me even more of my gran´s recipe, as she used some smoked ham in her maccaroni cheese.
Gluten-free: Use gluten-free macaroni.
Linda McCartney’s Home Cooking, p. 84
This oven-bake is a great meal for the whole family on cold autumn days. I recommend using 4 tbsp. tomato paste and 100ml of water in addition to the tinned tomatoes. This will give you more sauce and tomato flavour and the dish will be nice and moist.
For a gluten-free option, chose gluten-free maccaroni. For a vegan version, try using vegan “cheese” slices instead of the mozzarella and sprinkle some home-made vegan “parmesan” on top. You can find a recipe for vegan “parmesan” here.
From: Linda McCartney’s Home Cooking, p. 121
This recipe uses left-over spaghetti to make a cheese-filled omelette. My Mum used to make this for lunch sometimes, and I think it is great for a quick meal and to use up cold pasta.
Variations: If you want to make this less rich, omit the cheese and add some sliced tomato and one tbsp chopped fresh basil instead. You can also flavour the omelette by adding one clove of crushed garlic to the egg mixture.
Gluten-Free: Use gluten-free pasta.