Homemade Whole Wheat Pasta Misto with Seitan

Dinner 6/10 by Amy and Juan



• Homemade Whole Wheat Dill Pasta

• Tomato Sauce

• Garlic Scape Pesto

• Oven-baked Seitan

• Creamless Greens Soup

I'm a carb-aholic, so I dream of bottomless bowls of pasta with savory sauces. However, some folks think that commercial whole wheat pasta tastes as good as the box it comes in. Homemade pasta is much more tasty, so I can still make all of my pasta dreams come true. Tonight, I made pasta with dried dill based on this recipe by Bryanna Clark Grogan. I like to use a combination of whole wheat and chickpea flour -- both freshly ground in our mill.

The tomato sauce was made with canned tomato paste and juice from last summer. Juan also threw in some spring onions, garlic scapes and a whole lot of spices. It was the perfect counterpoint to the garlic scape pesto which was so flavorful, a small bit went a long way. I basically took our favorite pesto recipe from "Cooking the Whole Foods Way" by Christina Pirello and replaced the basil and garlic with scapes. It was creamy and pungent, but not too overpowering. I liked it best with both sauces mixed together. Is that sacrilege?

As usual, Juan made a tasty batch of seitan. Yes, tonight's dinner was brought to you by wheat. :) I'll have to get him to write up the recipe some time because the world shouldn't be denied its greatness. It's one of my favorite foods.

The soup was based on Creamless Broccoli Soup, but it ends up that the broccoli was all gone, so I made it with a mix of kales instead. I think it came out really delicious, though the oats brought a certain mucilaginousness to the mix. I think if I hadn't made it, I would have wondered what the heck was going on with the texture. :) Still, a recipe that I would make again.