Maybe I was Italian in another life. I live my life as an Irish&Polish American proudly. I take an extra shot of Jameson for Grandma and Grandpa and pour one out for my DziaDzio, wherever he may be. I like to embrace my heritage, mostly because it helps shape who I am, but also because I can't change it. So if you don't embrace it, then what else do you do? Ignore it? Anyways I'm trying to talk about how I'm not Italian, but find some sort of affinity with Italian food. I know the flavors really well, I know the methods and the traditional concepts, and really, when I'm craving something, it almost always has pasta to do with it. Maybe I just love American food that's influenced by Italian food. Okay, maybe I don't really know what affinity means.

Italian Wedding Soup

 The basics: A good pasta with a good sauce. My sauce is made with lots of caramelized onions, roasted garlic and a healthy pinch of chili flakes, and aggressively seasoned with oregano, thyme, and basil. I always blend my sauce. It's just a thing I have..


Can anyone remember their first stuffed shell? I think the first stuffed shell I had was in Connecticut somewhere on vacation with my family at about age 10. How did I live 10 years without any stuffed shells? A mystery to this day. From the day after my first stuffed shell on, I hardly ever wanted to eat anything else. These are stuffed with a cream made from cashews, tofu, parsley, nooch, and an italian-spiced lentil meat.


Authentic Italian spinach and beans. A staple in my house, Italian night or not. A hundred cloves of garlic, white wine, and some olive oil is all you really need.


No Italian meal is complete without at least some kind of bread, roll, or bread rolled into a stick and baked. Breadsticks are somehow very special. If you make bread, people are like, "meff." If you make rolls, people are all like, "hmm." If you make breadsticks, people will flip out about how much they love breadsticks and have 7. These are rolled in olive oil, garlic powder and salt. Honestly, when you are all pissed off about the fiscal cliff, or your favorite vegan Ice cream shoppe closing, or about the animals in your attic banging around waking you up too early in the morning, just get yourself a breadstick. And things will be better. I promise.


What a fancy dinner! It might have taken me seven hours from start to finish, but I'd do it again in the name of ridiculously indulgent dinners, Italian food, and my friends and family.

The Mightiest Meatless Meetball You'll Ever Make:

Bake for about 30 minutes, then flip and bake about 10-15 more until the meetballs feel firm to the touch. Serve warm with lots of marinara sauce.

It looks a little murky to be green, but green is the color of mostly all of the ingredients! This is chock full of good stuff for you, and hey, if you wanted to eat this 4 times a week, you could do much much worse. The broth is super spicy, because spicy chili is the bees knees. Or.. something.

Tempeh Green Chili

2 8oz packages of tempeh
1 head of green kale
4 cups baby spinach
3 carrots, peeled and diced
1 1lb tomatillos
2 jalapeño chiles
2 poblano peppers
3 leeks
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 onion, Diced
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 lb mushrooms, quartered
5 cups homemade vegetable broth
2 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon corriander
1/4 cup tamari or soy sauce
1 can canellini beans, rinsed and drained
1 can navy beans, rinsed and drained
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

1/4 cup chopped parsely
1 avocado, diced, optional but warranted

Cut leeks lengthwise and chop off the tough dark green ends. Discard tough ends and slice the leeks into half moons. Separate chopped layers of leeks and place in a bowl. Fill bowl with water and slosh the leeks around so that the dirt and grit falls to the bottom of the bowl.
Heat olive oil in a large soup pot and add leeks, onion, mushrooms, carrots, and garlic and sauté. Rip the kale off the tough veins and rinse. Tear into bite-sized pieces and add to pot. Wilt kale for 2 minutes and add spinach. Wilt for about 5 minutes.
Peel tomatillos and rinse under water. Preheat the broiler. Place tomatillos, jalapeños and poblanos in a cast-iron skillet and broil for 8-9 minutes or until all tomatillos and chiles have split or blistered. Remove and let cool. Peel away the burnt skin and puree in a food processor. Pour mix into soup.
Tear tempeh into bite-sized chunks and place in a large skillet. Cover tempeh pieces with water and simmer about 10 minutes. Drain away excess water and heat tempeh over medium high heat. pour tamari over tempeh and stir. Cook 1 minute and turn off heat.
Now add corriander, cumin, oregano, salt, pepper, and paprika to soup and stir. Add broth and bring to boil. Reduce to simmer and add beans. Cook 15 minutes, covered. Add tempeh and stir. Cook for 3 minutes and turn off heat. Ladle into bowls and top with chopped parsley and diced avocado.

Spinach White Bean Tortellini

1 recipe tortellini dough

1 lb fresh baby spinach
3 cloves garlic
1 15 oz can white beans, or 2 cups cooked white beans, like navy or canellini
1/3 cup white wine
1/3 cup nooch
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon olive oil

3 tablespoons garlic creme sauce
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 tablespoon chopped parsley

In a large saute pan, add 1/2 teaspoon olive oil and heat on medium. In handfuls, add the spinach, turning with tongs to wilt. After about 3 minutes, add white wine. Turn the spinach with tongs until all the leaves are wilted.
In a food processor, chop garlic. Now drain and rinse the beans and add them to the food processor. Blend until relatively smooth and add spinach. Puree until a loose mixture comes together. Add nooch, salt and pepper, and taste for seasonings.
Form tortellini.
Boil tortellini for 4-5 minutes, until all tortellini have risen to the top and slightly puffed.
Spoon the sauce onto the bottom of your dish. Arrange tortellini on the top of your sauce. Drizzle the teaspoon of olive oil over the top and sprinkle with fresh parsley.

Long Time, No Blog. I'm sorry, friends. I've been out and about this summer, visiting friends, family, some vegan restaurants and seeing some kickass shows all over this side of the country. I've also been keeping busy doing a bunch of recipe writing and testing and eating, of course. I also just heard John Stewart mispronounce "vegan." He said "VAY-gun." Can we put our faith in no one?
So let's cut to the chase. This dip. 
Sometimes, when you find yourself living in central New Jersey, you find yourself at Chilis. Not my proudest moment, but I do often find inspiration in hum-drum, run-of-the-mill, drown-my-sorrows-after-a-shitty-day-at-work, 1/2 price-appetizers-at-happy-hour kind of chain establishment. Well, I find inspiration at these kinds of places, or vicariously through an episode of Diners, Drive-In's and Dives.
Every single place like the kind I'm describing has a Spinach and Artichoke dip. My aunt Maureen used to make one like this for family get-togethers and I think hers is the only one I've ever actually tasted, though they all look and sound delicious. It's an obvious crowd-pleaser, and that's probably why it's on so many menus and on so many tables during family gatherings. Us vay-guns have passed on this dip and scooped up yet another hunk of walmart hummus with our pita chip instead time and time again, because this dip is mostly comprised of cream and cheese, you know, the two things that aren't even part of the title.
Well I can make you that dip, friends. I can, and I will. Oh wait, I did. That was unsuspenseful.
Have I told you I'm writing a cookbook called, "Life after Cashews" ? It's a working title but it had a better ring to it than "Divine Secrets of The Cashew Sisterhood."

Spinach-Artichoke dip

8-9 artichoke hearts, sliced
1 large white onion, diced
5 cloves garlic, sliced
5 large handfuls baby spinach
2 teaspoons olive oil
3/4 cup cashews
1/2 cup plain soy yogurt
1/4 cup nooch
2 teaspoons garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
salt
pepper
1/4 cup unsweetened almond milk

Put cashews in a blender with nooch, herbs, garlic powder, yogurt, salt and pepper and blend. Add almond milk slowly until a creamy paste is achieved. Blend about 2 minutes, maybe more if you have a tag-sale blender.
Heat olive oil in a large cast iron skillet over medium heat. Add onion and saute for about 4 minutes, until relatively caramelized. Add artichokes and cook another 2 minutes. Add garlic and cook 1 more minute. Then add the spinach in handfuls, adding more as it wilts down. Toss the spinach with everything else using tongs, aiding the wilting process. When all spinach is wilted, pour in cashew cream. Stir everything together and taste for salt and pepper. Preheat the broiler.
Find a cute little baking dish that seems sized appropriately for a dip of this sort. Pile all of the mixture into the dish and broil for about 5 minutes, until bubbly and browned in spots. Let cool about 10 minutes before serving.