Super Easy, Super Yummy, Vegetarian Rigatoni Bolognese

Hi Honeys 

How are you today?  Do you remember all of that lovely snow recently?  All gone now, replaced with rain and a breeze, so icy and sharp it could chill a nose off a face... or feels like it anyway.  It's definitely still mittens, scarves, hats and layers weather outside ⛄ 

I'm so wishing for spring to arrive.  Only eight weeks to go now until the clocks change here in UK and it really can't pass quick enough.  We're starting to see glimmers of sunshine now and again but I so long to peg lots of lovely laundry outside and to see our much loved garden wake from it's long, long winter sleep.  I miss seeing our beautiful roses when I open the front door honeys 🌹

It's January and my resolutions for this year are pretty much the same as they were last year.  Last year I promised I'd make some headway into organising and downsizing the amount of clutter we have in our home and I also promised I'd try to take more control of my health too.

I have the most wonderful Doctor and I'm blessed to attend a great clinic at the hospital for my arthritis, but last year was truly awful, health wise, for me.  The constant joint and muscle pain went off the scale, restricting my mobility even further, to the point I wasn't coping at all well anymore. 

As if that wasn't enough, in the later part of the year I had a chest infection which turned into bronchitis. I battled this for over four months leading to yet another new experience. I had to go have a CT scan.  I was taken off my arthritis medication (it flattens my immune system) for several months to allow my chest infection to try to heal but this allowed the arthritis pain to run riot.

The result was that I didn't do much de-cluttering or have a chance to look into the pilates or yoga I'd been told might help my spine pain or anything else to be honest honeys.  I wasn't in the driver seat last year dear ones. I woke up every day and tried to make it to bedtime. 

Not a good way to live and I'm so determined to make an effort this year.  I really can't live another year like last year so, first thing first, I'm hoping to pro-actively do something about my health.  I've gotten myself two beginners Yoga and two beginners Pilates dvds, and I'm changing our diet to a far healthier one. 

To that end I was rummaging about on Pinterest looking for recipes and stumbled across a fabulous vegetarian version of one of Hubby's favourites, Bolognese 😊  I clicked on the link and it took me to a wonderful recipe and a fabulous blog written by a lovely lady called Trinity.  I'll include a link to her blog so you can go say hello honeys but first I'll show you a version of her Vegetarian Bolognese.

I hope Trinity doesn't mind but I left out some things (neither Hubby nor I are fans of celery) and added others (I had to add the rigatoni pasta it's taken over from macaroni here lately as favourite pasta 😊) I would have loved to use fresh basil but I didn't have any on hand  but I'll show you what I did and you can tell me what you think of it 😊

To the kitchen dear ones....

Vegetarian Rigatoni Bolognese

Ingredients

1 medium onion 

2 medium sweet potatoes

Mushrooms - handful sliced 

1 carton (mine was 500g) Passata

Italian herbs - I used dried because it was what I had 

Salt and pepper to taste 

250gm pack of rigatoni pasta 

Directions

1. Add a little olive oil to a pan and place over a low heat.  I used a sautee pan honeys.

2. Peel and finely chop or dice your medium onion.  Add to the pan and stir with a spatula.  Allow to continue cooking over a low heat for few minutes stirring occasionally.
    

3. wash, peel and roughly chop two medium sweet potatoes.  I'm in love with sweet potatoes right now, love them 😋

4. Stir onions and add sweet potato to the pan.

5. Slice your mushrooms.  Mushrooms shouldn't be washed because they'll absorb moisture which can also alter their flavour.  If necessary, clean with a little kitchen roll.  Add your sliced mushrooms to the pan with the onion and sweet potato.  Stir. 

6. Add a carton of passata and stir again to combine ingredients.  I used a carton of passata which had garlic added but if you can't find this, add crushed garlic to taste.  Some people like lots of garlic others just a tiny hint so do what suits honeys. 

If you can't find passata in your supermarket just use a can of chopped tomatoes and either blend them or push them through a sieve.
 

Add a generous sprinkle of Italian herbs, I used dried because that was what I had on hand.  I also added a good sized sprinkle of basil, a favourite of ours... yum!

7. Stir ingredients together and cook over a low heat, stirring occasionally. 

8. While your bolognese is cooking, carefully (very carefully! watch out for splashes honeys) add your rigatoni pasta to a pot of boiling water.  Stir and allow to cook, stirring occasionally as with the bolognese, for 13-15 minutes.  Until pasta is soft and yummy when you try a piece 😋

9. Continue stirring your bolognese over the low heat to make sure it doesn't burn. 

You'll know it's ready when the sweet potato is soft and breaks easily with a fork, it should take around 20 minutes.

10.  When the bolognese is ready, remove from the heat and place to one side... 

11. Check the pasta.  If ready, remove from the heat and very carefully drain the hot water. 

12.  Either serve your yummy bolognese on a bed of the cooked pasta ...

13. Or add cooked rigatoni pasta to the pan a little at a time and gently stir (so as not to break the pasta) until the pasta is completely mixed through...

14. Serve lovely heaped bowls with a yummy, crunchy side salad.

This was just so easy to make honeys and so nice Hubby took some to work with him for lunch today 😊  We both loved this recipe and I've a feeling it will be made over and over, with little tweaks being made each time (next time I'll be sure to have fresh basil) until it's just perfect for us and is sure to become a favourite.  

Thank you so much to lovely Trinity for being such an inspiration, and if you haven't already visited her blog, Trinity's Kitchen, please go say hello honeys she's so nice, so warm, welcoming and friendly and her blog is just awesome too.  You can find her original recipe here too, please go check it out, you'll be so glad you did.  

Over to you honeys. Do you love Italian food as much as I do?  I've literally never met an Italian dish I didn't adore and Hubby loves lasagna so much his middle name should be Garfield 😊  I'm hoping to transition Hubby and I over to a more Mediterranean diet, not just because we both adore the gorgeous flavours, smells and variety of the food but because I'm determined we're going to be more healthy this year and recipes like this one will help.  

Till next time dear ones, stay warm. The snow may be gone but it's still chilly in that biting wind.  Heaps of huggles always xx