For our St. Helena's Cooking class on 12/13/2025, we made a great salad and Pasta e Fagiole. It felt like the right day to do so, and lo and behold, as soon as the class was over, it started to snow.
My point of departure was this recipe:
https://plantbasedcookingshow.com/2025/12/08/plant-based-pasta-fagioli/
and here is the video:
The only thing I really changed, was the quantity, for we made it for five people, and I just about doubled everything.
One addition we made was we added a block of baked Seitan, cut in cubes, which adds some chewy texture. Sometimes recovering carnivores appreciate that.
Along with it, we made a nice mixed Salad, ingredients:
- A head of red leaf lettuce (we used CalOrganics, from ShopRite, Bruckner Plaza)
- 2 tomatoes, cut up
- 2 shredded carrots.
- 1 stalk thinly sliced celery
- 2 cups of quinoa
- 3 tbsp of capers
- some sliced cooked beets
- 1 red onion, cut up fine
The dressing was my usual 1/2/3, adapted from Esselstyn's 3/2/1, for symple reasons of physics:
If you are measuring it with a spoon, the mustard washes out the maple syrup, and the balsamic washes out the mustard, plus then I added the juice of 1/2 lemon and 1/2 lime:
- 1 tbsp maple syrup
- 2 tbsp dijon mustard
- 3 tbsp balsamic vinegar
- juice of 1/2 lemon
- juice of 2/2 lime
If that dressing becomes too acidic, you can sprinkle in some date sugar, or you can also make it thicker and milder by adding in some chia seeds, but that works best if you can marinade it in the fridge overnight.
We had too much food, because two people did not show up, but we fed Melissa in the rectory, and some of the crew for an event that was being held in the gym later.
We finished off the meal with a red dragon fruit, quartered and sliced, with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar.
