This is a very simple pasta recipe that packs a ton of flavour.  Capers and kalamatas are both very bold, so this is not for the faint of heart.  But as I have said before, just because we’re vegans doesn’t mean we’re pussies!  Bring on the bold!

I would serve this pasta with a crisp, light salad and a good whole wheat bun.  The recipe makes between three and four adult servings, depending on how big your appetite is.  If you have buns and greens to accompany four is entirely reasonable.  Even more so if you have planned on some dessert, which again, in deference to the heaviness and boldness of this pasta, I would make a tossed fruit salad or perhaps something like frozen grapes.  Keep the accompaniments light is what I’m saying.

Enough preamble.  Let’s begin, shall we?

First: get a pot of water boiling for your pasta.  When it boils, add salt.  For the noodles themselves, I used 200g of whole wheat bowties, but any chunky pasta would be fine.

Start with one zucchini.  A small one.  I bought the Italian type from Safeway.  Remove the ends.  Cut in half lengthwise, then each half in half lengthwise (so you end up with quarters), and then cut into little chunks.  Or devise your own method of making little pieces, I’m not picky.

Next, mince two cloves of garlic.  We love garlic around here!

Now toss the zucchini and garlic into a deep pan.  At this point you need to decide if you want to sautee in oil or not.  If you do, use olive oil and a medium heat to get the zucc and garlic nice and cooked.  If you’re like me and prefer to avoid added oil, just use a little bit of water to get things moving (same temperature).  I tried salting the zucchini to help them release their water for the purposes of “sauteeing” without oil, but that was a mistake.  DO NOT ADD SALT.  The olives and capers will bring plenty of salt to the sauce!  None needs to be added! See the big black X over the salt shaker?  That means no salt.  If at the end you decide the sauce needs salt, you can add it then.

Once these guys are soft and sauteed, toss in tomato base.  You could either chop up four or five large, ripe tomatoes, or use a big can of diced tomatoes (which often taste better than whole), or use a mix like I did.  I had half a can available and I added two diced tomatoes.

Next we’ll spice it with a tablespoon of dried marjoram.  If you don’t have marjoram you could use oregano.

Once the marjoram is in, turn up the heat to get the sauce at a boil.  Maintain the sauce at a gentle simmer with the lid on for about fifteen minutes.  During this time, get your pasta cooking.  Your goal is to have the pasta ready to eat at the same time as the sauce is finished simmering.  Based on a fifteen minute simmer, time as required.

While your zucc and garlic are cooking in the tomato sauce and the pasta is cooking, it’s time to prepare the olives.  I bought whole kalamatas.  Here they are, being depitted.  To easily remove the pit from an olive, smash them with the flat side of your knife (as you would a garlic clove before peeling) and then the pit is easy to pull out.

Once the pits are removed, roughly chop the olives.  You want about a cup altogether.  That took about twenty olives.  Next, measure out two tablespoons of capers, which you should give a quick rinse to (or not - I love the salty brine so I didn’t rinse mine, but I’m a rebel).

After the fifteen minute simmer, toss in the olive chunks and the capers.  If your timing is perfect, your pasta will be finished immediately after you add these guys.

Give it a stir and let the new additions get hot.  I have found that long cooking of olives tends to diffuse their flavour and make the sauce taste too homogenous.  Adding the olives at the end keeps their flavour sharp and distinct, so you have sauce which tastes of tomatoes and olives as a separate flavour.  The contrast is very pleasing, and this is why I add them at the end.  The capers are less prone to this flavour diffusion problem so you could probably add them any old time, but I like to keep things neat so they go with the olives.  The longer these ingredients cook in the sauce, the saltier it will taste too (or at least this is what I have noticed.  YMMV.)

At this point you can sample for saltiness and add pepper if you wish (I didn’t).  Here’s the sauce all ready to go:

So your sauce is ready, the pasta just finished cooking, and all that remains is to toss it all together.  Then lovingly spoon it into bowls, like so:

Delicious!  And dead easy!  The whole works can be done in twenty minutes, no problem.  Once you are familiar with the recipe it’s easy to whip up a simple green salad (and pull a bun out of a bag) while the sauce is simmering too, so you really can prepare a full meal in this time limit.  Guaranteed to impress with big flavours!

This is not my recipe.  It is from one of the best cook books ever, Splendid Soups by James Peterson.  Splendid indeed!  You should rush out and buy this book if you like soup.  (It’s not vegetarian, in case you wondered.)  Anyway, this soup is so easy to make and the results are almost shockingly good.  Seriously.  I would not lie to you.  I took a lot of pictures but honestly, the whole works comes together in under forty minutes start to finish, and that includes time where you’re just twiddling your thumbs and watching TV while something simmers.  Not bad for a home made soup.

First, may I introduce the fennel, of which one bulb is required:

He has a slightly licoricey taste.  Here’s how you deal with him.  First chop off his leafy stems.  And cut him into quarters, cutting top to bottom.  Here he is, just before the final quartering cut:

Notice the wedge shaped parts of his stem there at the bottom.  That part isn’t nice to eat so we’re going to chop it off, as well as taking a shallow slice directly off the bottom.  This destems him.  The picture shows me making a very tricky and technically demanding angled slice to get the core/stem out:

Now he needs to be diced.  Don’t fuss too much with this.  The goal is to make little pieces that are soup-sized.  I cut each quarter into thirds, vertically, and then cut across these for the dice:

Now you toss all those pieces into your pot.  Next we will finely dice one medium sized white onion:

And that goes in the pot too.  Next add a bouquet garni - basically just a bundle of herbs tied together with twine that will simmer in the pot and be removed before serving.  You can use any herbs you like, though traditionally thyme, parsley, and a bay leaf are involved.  Marjoram is the herb recommended by the author, and I used marjoram, bay, thyme, sage, rosemary, and parsley.  Bundle them all up and tie it with some butcher’s twine, then toss it in the pot too.

Next we need to add 18 whole, peeled cloves of garlic.  Seriously!  When boiled without first being sauteed, garlic becomes very soft and mild.  The soup will taste of garlic but it won’t be overwhelming.  Trust me.  Go for it.  I used two whole cloves.

So now here is what your pot looks like:

It has a certain elegance, no?

Put the pot on the stove and add two litres of chicken stock, or in my case, faux chicken stock which involves no actual chickens.

Bring it to a boil and let it simmer for fifteen minutes covered.  While that’s happening, chop up about four very red and ripe tomatoes, about two cups worth.  I ended up with closer to three cups because I had a rogue tomato that needed chopping before it got too soft for any other use.  The recipe says to peel and deseed them, but I gotta tell you, that just seems like a waste to me.  You end up throwing out about a third of the volume of the tomato and I personally like the feel of the little seeds.  So I left everything in.  Which might also explain why I ended up with too much tomato:

And once the soup has simmered for fifteen minutes, you toss in the tomatoes and let it go for another ten minutes covered.

While that is cooking, strip some of the fuzzy bits off the fennel stalks and chop them up.  Try for a tablespoon or so.

And while you’re at it, chop up about a quarter cup of parsley, very fine.  I used flat leaf parsley which I prefer to the curly - the curly stuff feels yucky to me.  And reminds me of bad diners.

It’s also time to prepare the beans.  The recipe calls for properly cooking white beans from dry, but I can’t be bothered so I just use a can of precooked white kidney beans.  The recipe calls for just one cup, but I also hate to waste half a can of beans since they come packaged in more than a cup, so I just use them all.  When using canned beans, make sure to rinse them first.  They come out of the can in a sort of sludgy broth that I have never tasted but looks gross. Here are the beans next to the tomatoes.  Don’t worry about the continuity error.

Okay, so while you chopped fennel and parsley and rinsed beans, the tomatoes had their ten minutes to simmer in the soup.  Now fish out the bouquet garni, which has outlived its usefulness and needs to go in the trash. Shake off any clinging onions or other bits.

Now add the beans:

And the parsley and fennel fuzz:

And some salt and pepper to taste.  Stir.  Behold!

Behold also the mess on my stove.  Heh.  Okay, now you just let the beans heat through for maybe five minutes, and serve with crusty bread and perhaps a nice salad.  Hearty and delicious.  Seriously delicious.