Vegan with a Vengeance

transfer to a large cutting board to slice. Proceed to your next pizza; by this point you should feel like you’re serving pizza in a vegan villa in Italy.

Green Garden Puree
    MAKES ABOUT 6 CUPS
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    This is a fresh-tasting thick ricotta-like puree that is delicious as a lasagne or ravioli filling, or as a pasta or pizza topping.
    1 pound asparagus, ends discarded, chopped into 3-inch lengths
    1 pound green beans, halved, ends removed and discarded
    1 cup frozen peas
    1 cup slivered almonds
    2 cloves garlic
    1 cup loosely packed flat-leaf parsley
    4 scallions, green parts only, coarsely chopped
    2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
    Juice of ½ lemon
    â…› teaspoon ground or grated fresh nutmeg
    1 pound extra-firm tofu
    1 cup chopped basil leaves
    Have ready a large bowl of ice water.
    Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Add the asparagus and green beans; boil for 2 minutes. Add the frozen peas and boil for 2 more minutes. Drain vegetables and submerge in the ice water to stop cooking.
    Pulse the almonds into a fine powder. Add the boiled vegetables, garlic, parsley, scallions, olive oil, lemon juice, and nutmeg; puree until smooth.
    In a large bowl, mash the tofu with your hands until it has a ricotta-like consistency. Add the puree and mix well. Fold in the basil. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

Homemade Gnocchi
    SERVES 6-8
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    There is no substitute, well, I should say, no good substitute for homemade pastas. Gnocchi are a nice place to start in your pasta-making journey because they are easy, delicious, and pretty difficult to mess up. If you are unfamiliar with gnocchi, they are a small, cute potato dumpling. There are a lot of accoutrements you can spend money on to give your gnocchi the perfect ridges that you find in the store-bought or restaurant variety but I find that a long fork works just fine. This is my basic recipe to get you started but I’ve listed some of my favorite variations below. Make sure to try those as well! Serve with Classic Pesto (page 132), Sun-dried Tomato Pesto (page 183), or a simple tomato sauce.
    2 pounds russet potatoes, washed and scrubbed
    Â½ teaspoon salt
    2 tablespoons olive oil
    1½ to ¾ cups all-purpose flour
    Preheat oven to 400°F.
    Poke four or five holes all over the potatoes. Bake them (you don’t need a tray or foil, right on the oven rack is fine) for 45 minutes to an hour, depending on the size. Do a test after 45 minutes; they should be very tender. Use tongs to remove them; place on a cooling rack and let them cool completely. This could take half an hour.
    Remove the skins from the cooled potatoes and place them in a large mixing bowl. Add the olive oil and salt and mash very well. You don’t want to puree them, that will make the gnocchi sticky, just mash them until they have very few lumps. Add the flour in handfuls and incorporate it into the potatoes. Once you’ve added half the flour you can turn the dough onto a floured countertop to work it there. Keep adding flour and lightly kneading the dough until a smooth, unsticky but not dry dough is formed.
    Divide the dough into thirds and roll each portion into a rope that is about ½ inch thick. Use a pizza wheel or a knife to cut the ropes into ¾-inch-long pieces. Now comes the fun part (well, I think it’s fun)—flour your hands and use your thumb to roll each piece of gnocchi gently down the tines of a fork. Each piece should be able to do about half a roll before reaching the end of the fork so the final result should be that one side of the gnocchi has an indent from your thumb and one side has ridges from the fork.
    At this point you can sprinkle with flour and freeze any gnocchi you aren’t using. To cook them immediately bring a large pot of water to a boil. Salt the water liberally and cook the gnocchi in three batches. Within 2 minutes they should rise to the surface; let them cook just under a minute longer and remove them with a slotted
spoon. Transfer them to a large plate so that they aren’t putting weight on each other and sauce them as soon as you can. I like them with either a simple tomato sauce or sautéed briefly with pesto and veggies.
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    VARIATIONS:
    Herbed Gnocchi: After mashing the potatoes, add 2 tablespoons of chopped fresh herbs, such as oregano, thyme, and rosemary.
    Sun-dried Tomato Gnocchi: Use only 1½ pounds of potatoes. Soak 1 cup of chopped sun-dried tomatoes in hot water. Cover and let sit