Sequestration Meal #418

 

I know I've said this before, and maybe it's a bit strange to keep emphasizing it, but there are foods I would have eaten no matter what, and then there are foods that bear absolutely no resemblance to what I would ever have considered as an omnivore. I think of the latter as uber-vegan meals. This is one of those, and that fact is one of the things that makes me really happy that I'm vegan. Omnivore me was totally missing out.

This is chickpea-stuffed spaghetti squash with garlicky arugula cream sauce and garnished with more arugula and toasted pine nuts, largely following the recipe at The First Mess. I did not have cashew butter so I soaked a half cup of raw cashews overnight to substitute for that and added a bit less water than the original recipe called for. I also used a small yellow onion instead of a shallot and cooked it low and slow so it would be sweeter, more like a shallot. Otherwise, I followed the directions.

This was remarkable. The sauce is creamy and peppery and tastes so green in the best way. As I ate out of my squash boat, pulling the spaghetti squash strands into the sauce, everything got coated in that creamy deliciousness. I don't often like to eat chickpeas in their whole form (I'll eat hummus and smashed chickpea salad all day long, but I'm warming up to whole chickpeas--a texture thing I think reaches back to my childhood), but they were so good in this.

Pine nuts aren't so common in my diet, either, but they were so lovely here! They go really well with arugula. All in all, a remarkable success.

As someone who has been vegan for five and a half years, I realize I'm now considered a long-term vegan. But things like this make veganism feel continuously new and fresh to me. Maybe someday I'll feel like I'm a long-term vegan and know what I'm doing all the time. But for now, I think I'm still exploring. Maybe that's what veganism always feels like, and the adventure being joyful is the difference when you've been at it for a while. Let me know what you think.