I’ve been leaning vegan the last few months, thanks to watching Forks Over Knives, reading Engine 2 Diet and Dr Joel Fuhrman’s Super Immunity. Our vegan-ish Thanksgiving dinner was pretty yummy – I skipped the turkey course – but today I was ready for something completely different. There were mushrooms in the fridge and after deciding not to make pasta al funghi for the 73rd time I went with this – a vegan version of shrimp diabla. I apologize for the inexact measurements. I was making it up as I went along and didn’t decide to write down the recipe until we were eating it.

Ingredients

olive oil
almost a pound Mushrooms – sliced (criminis, a shiitake from the logs, and a packaged chefs blend from whole foods)
7 cloves Garlic – minced
1 onion – chopped
4 jalepenos – seeded and chopped
1 serano – diced
5 roma tomatoes – seeded and chopped
some red wine
1/2 cup cilantro – destemmed and chopped
1 Tb lemon juice
1 tp oregano
1/2 tp thyme
cayenne pepper
salt
pepper
pasta

Directions

Saute the mushrooms in olive oil with a little salt over medium heat.
Add the garlic when the mushrooms are starting to soften and have released their juices. Once the liquid cooks away, pour in a little red wine.
In another pan, saute the onion and peppers in olive oil with a little salt also over medium heat.
Once the onions are soft, add the tomatoes and herbs. Cook the tomatoes down a bit. Add the mushroom and garlic mixture. Add salt, pepper and cayenne to taste. Really, taste it! Turn the heat down to low medium and cover the pot.

Start cooking the pasta in salted water. (We used whole wheat spaghetti.)

Add a couple of tablespoons of pasta water to the sauce until it looks right. (This is why I’m not writing recipes for a living.)

Right before the pasta is done add the cilantro and lemon juice to sauce and turn off the heat.

Serve the sauce over pasta. Add a little Parmesan cheese if you want, but it’s really good without it.