Vegan Friday - a super-easy vegan dinner

It's Vegan Friday!

For today's offering, I wanted to guide you through a super-easy vegan dinner. Maybe you're just starting out on your vegan journey and need something easy for, you know, dinner tonight. There's something about pasta that is just so comforting to eat, and easy to prepare, that you can't really go wrong with it (unless you're low-carb, in which case, I salute you). So here's my go-to easy-peasy vegan pasta dinner.

Here's what you need:

• pasta (duhh) - I use wholewheat fusilli but whatever is lurking in the cupboard is fine - about 80g of dried pasta per person
• vegan pesto - the only slightly special ingredient, can be found in the 'free from' section of any supermarket, I get the Tesco own-brand one because it's cheap
• a glug of olive oil
• garlic
• a red onion (or a normal onion)
• mushrooms
• olives
• bell pepper
• baby spinach
• pine nuts
• one small carton of passata will be enough for two servings
• salt & pepper if desired

If there's a vegetable you don't like in amongst all that, just leave it out, or put in extra. Sweetcorn would be a good idea for example. So here we go:

1. Put some water in a pan and start heating it ready for the pasta, putting a lid on the pan at this point speeds up the process and saves energy.
2. Put about a tablespoon of olive oil into a large frying pan and put on a low heat.
3. Start chopping! Garlic first, double the number of people you are serving, so for one person, two cloves, two people, four cloves etc. Add chopped garlic to the pan.
4. Peel and chop the onion as small as you like (my preference is the smaller the better) and add to the frying pan.
5. Your water may be boiling now so stick the pasta on and set a timer for 11 minutes.
6. Wash, chop and add your mushrooms and peppers to the frying pan if you're having them, maybe turn the heat up a smidge to make sure the mushrooms actually cook and don't come out all squishy.
7. Add olives and baby spinach. Spinach reduces down to nothing by the way, so feel free to add loads.
8. Once the spinach has wilted a bit, pour in the passata and stir, add a bit of salt and pepper. Wait for timer to go off.
9. Beep! Pasta's done, drain it (over the sink, please) before returning it to the saucepan. Add some vegan pesto (I tend to go by one generous teaspoon per person).
10. Add the pesto pasta to the frying pan and mix in.
11. Serve.
12. Add a sprinkling of pine nuts if you're feeling fancy. There's also a vegan parmesan available (I think it's from Violife) - I haven't tried it as I'm trying to lose some weight at the moment and I don't need more calorific treats in my life right now. Nutritional Yeast is also a very very tasty addition, but it can be hard to find in supermarkets and you totally don't need it.
13. Enjoy!

Have you tried this recipe or a similar one? If so, do let me know. 

I hope you all have a fabulous Vegan Friday.

SSV x