veggie bolognese sauce

i made up this Vegan Bolognese Sauce recipe last night and it was so good! i smushed up the vegan meatballs from Trader Joes but you could very easily use tempeh instead. i used my mini food processor to get the tiny chunks of celery, carrots and onions but you could just get your chop on and hand-chop them.

ingredients (serving size one package of spaghetti – so 2 to 3 people):
cooking time: 15 minutes

- 4 regular/large carrots
- 3 stalks of celery
- half large white onion
- 2 cloves of garlic
- about 8 Trader Joe’s Meatless Meatballs or 1.5 to 2 cups of crumbled tempeh
- half head of broccoli or a couple leaves of kale or just some chopped parsley for garnish
- 1 package of whole wheat or brown rice spaghetti
- 1 jar of pasta sauce (i used arrabiata because i like a little spiciness)
- italian herbs, olive oil, salt and pepper

do it:

- use your food processor or hand chop all the carrots, celery and onion into very small chunks (cut broccoli or kale in larger chunks for some greenery)
- put a sploosh of olive oil in a large pan and soften all the veggies and minced cloves of garlic over a medium/low heat
- start cooking your spaghetti so it’s nice and hot and al dente when your sauce is done
- add your frozen meatballs or tempeh (note, once the meatballs thaw and warm up they get soft enough to mush with a wooden spoon to make them more of a ground meat texture than a ball!)
- salt and pepper and herbs to taste
- when everything is nice and warm and fragrant add the jar of sauce to the veggies and “meat” to heat it up and finish off the sauce
- serve the spaghetti with the sauce on top and eat up!!!