Throwback Thursday & Recipes!

My Throwback Thursday photo is a picture of me back in high school.  It must have been 1982 or 83.  I'm playing Space Invaders on the Atari.  Good times!  Haha.

We had such a nice dinner with Lauren, Corey, Lindsay & Ben.  I wish Matthew could have been there but he was at school.  We are trying to follow more of a plant based diet and Lauren is vegan so I made a couple of vegan recipes - Italian Wonderpot & Layered Potato Bake - both turned out really good!

The Italian Wonderpot recipe is stocked with spices and so much flavor!  It's an easy recipe and I love that the entire recipe is prepared in one pot.  The only changes that I made was I used whole grain linguine pasta instead of fettuccine and I omitted the feta cheese. 

Italian Wonderpot Recipe

Ingredients

• 4 cups vegetable broth 
• 2 Tbsp olive oil 
• 12 oz. fettuccine
• 8 oz. frozen chopped spinach
• 1 (28 oz.) can diced tomatoes
• 1 medium onion
• 4 cloves garlic
• ½ Tbsp dried basil
• ½ Tbsp dried oregano
• ¼ tsp red pepper flakes
• freshly cracked pepper to taste
• 2 oz. feta cheese

Instructions

1. Add four cups of vegetable broth to a large pot. Break the fettuccine in half to make stirring easier later, and then add it to the pot. Also add the canned tomatoes (undrained), olive oil, frozen spinach, onion (thinly sliced), garlic (thinly sliced), basil, oregano, red pepper, and some freshly cracked black pepper.
2. Make sure the ingredients are submerged under the liquid, place a lid on top of the pot, and then turn the heat on to high. Allow the pot to come up to a full, rolling boil over high heat then remove the lid and turn the heat down to medium.
3. Allow the pot to continue to boil over medium heat, without a lid, for 10-15 minutes, or until the pasta is cooked and most of the liquid has been absorbed. Stir the pot every few minutes as it cooks to prevent the pasta from sticking to the bottom, but avoid over stirring which can cause the pasta to become sticky and mushy. The pot must be boiling the entire time.
4. After the pasta is cooked, crumble the feta cheese over top and serve.

The Layered Potato Bake recipe was delicious too and talk about easy!!  All you do is cut sweet potatoes and white potatoes in thin slices.  Cover the bottom of a baking dish with vegetable stock and arrange the potato slices in rows of each type.  Sprinkle with rosemary, cover and bake on 390 for about 45 minutes. Yum!!