Andrea Banerjee
It may be a stretch to call this a recipe – but it was delicious!
The other night I was craving spaghetti (which I normally don’t like very much!) While a bowl of white pasta with a marinara sauce sounded great, I thought it would be wise to aim for something packing a little more nutrition.
I’m not sure if you’d classify this as a ragu or a ragout. If, like me, you always forget the difference, a ragu is a thick, tomato-based pasta sauce, while a ragout is a French stew. Meat is a feature ingredient in both, so deciding which word more accurately describes a vegan dish is pretty moot! Nonetheless, I guess I would say that it features ingredients of a ragu but simmers like a ragout? It’s also more stew-like (ragout) than sauce-like (ragu) in texture.
Now that that questionable lesson in sauce semantics is over… here’s what I threw together! It was so tasty, and though I ended up serving it over steamed vegetables, it would be fantastic on spiralized veg noodles, or heaped onto some meatballs.
Ingredients
- Optional: 1/2 cup cooked pearl barley
- 3/4 can yellow lentils
- 1/4 cup finely diced celery (soften in boiling water for 5 minutes)
- 1/3 cup diced yellow onion
- 1/3 cup diced or shredded carrot
- 1/4 cup diced green pepper
- 3 tsp chilli powder
- 1 tbsp salt
- 2 cloves minced garlic
- black pepper to taste
- 350 mL marinara sauce
- 1/4 cup veggie ground round (I had it in the fridge)
Directions
- Sautee garlic, onions and celery in a skillet on medium heat for 5 minutes. Add lentils and cooked barley. Simmer for an additional 5 minutes.
- In a large sauce pan, combine all remaining ingredients. Salt and chilli powder are best added slowly, while stirring and tasting.
- Let simmer on low heat for 15-20 minutes.
- Serve over vegetables, meat balls or spaghetti squash. Enjoy!
