VeganMoFo Day 7 - Pasta

I'm a product of the generation that remembers the "Wednesday is Prince Spaghetti Day" commercials. Within walking distance of our apartment house we had no less than 4 stores that sold homemade pasta, including one whose owner encouraged us kids to come over and help her mix and cut.. The store is long gone, but the woman, now over 100 years old, still does volunteer work with kids. It was through her that I learned pasta comes in shapes and flavors other than plain old elbows and spaghetti.

One of those shapes, fusilli, is what I'll be needing for today's dinner, Pasta Twists with Cauliflower and Spinach, from Vegan Express by Nava Atlas. Sometimes I use a three-color whole wheat radiatore from Hodgson Mills instead of fussili. That's the beauty of the shaped pasta - substitutions don't detract from the dish and can sometimes enhance it.

Now I have to decide what soup to make with it. I was re-watching the McDougall cooking videos yesterday - that's why I suddenly decided to make that oh, so delicious Black Bean Soup - so perhaps I'll choose another of Mary McDougall's soups to go with today's dinner.

By the way, those two videos - McDougall Made Easy and McDougall Made Irresistible - are one sale right now, both DVD's for $25. Grab 'em while you can!

Hmm, they all look a bit too heavy for what I want. Instead I found this one, another Nava Atlas recipe - Tomato Rice Soup with Snow Peas and Mushrooms. It'll need some substitutions, say regular peas instead of snow peas and I'll be slicing up the baby bella mushrooms I have in the fridge that I bought for another meal that I never made. And of course, I'll do my sautéing in water instead of oil. The recipe is from her book Vegetarian Soups for All Seasons. And because it's being served with pasta I'll leave out the rice, too.