Recipe: The Happy Bowl!

This wonderfully delicious recipe is by guest blogger  Gracia Camizzi of La Cherie on Top a wonderful little Etsy shop, filled with adorable hair pins that will brighten your spring ‘do. This is Gracia’s first post, but hopefully not her last. This chick is a maverick in the kitchen, and loves to keep it practical!

Finding time to cook a healthy delicious meal isn’t always easy.   From day to day I struggle with the “What should we have for dinner tonight?” question.   Over the past few years, I have gone from being an omnivore and not knowing how to boil water, to being vegan and cooking every night! When my husband and I first met, I was eating fast food like it was crack, and never cooked a meal.   It wasn’t long before we both got tired of eating the same crappy food over and over again.

Slowly, I started to learn some culinary tricks and glued myself to the Food Network every night.   Let me tell you that Rachel Ray combined with Alton Brown makes for some pretty tasty treats!  Over the years of educating myself and trying new foods we made the leap into vegan living.  It was not easy. I failed miserably twice before sticking with it full time. At first the thought of cooking outside of my comfort level was too much to handle.  I was scared to death of tofu.  But, after getting serious I bought some cookbooks and stepped into my kitchen determined to make happy and healthy Vegan meals! Here is one that I make time and time again and totally love. It is beyond simple and tastes good enough to order in a restaurant.

Ingredients

• Pasta – Any kind will do, I like whole wheat linguine
• Vegan Italian Sausage (Field Roast is what I use.)
• Olive Oil – 4 Tablespoons
• 4 – 6 Cloves of Garlic (Crushed and chopped)
• 1 Yellow Onion (Chopped Small)
• 1 Large Zucchini (Chopped into bite size pieces)
• Portabella Mushrooms (Chopped into bite size pieces)
• 2 – 4 Roma Tomatoes or 1 large Jersey Tomato (Chopped into bite size pieces)
• Marinated Artichoke Hearts and the Liquid (Chopped Roughly)
• 2 Big Handfuls of Baby Spinach
• The Juice of one Lemon
• Fresh Rosemary (Chopped)
• Fresh Basil (Chopped, Ripped, or Whole)
• Capers
• Salt
• Pepper

Directions

Put on a big old pot of water for your pasta. While you are waiting for the pasta to boil start heating 2 pans with the Olive Oil, 2 tablespoons in each pan. One pan is for the sausage and the other is for everything else. Get to chopping! Sausage gets cut into bite size pieces and goes into its own pan. Then start with the garlic and proceed adding the rest of the veggies in this order. Onions, Zucchini, Mushrooms, Tomatoes, Artichoke Hearts and all of the liquid from the jar, Spinach, Capers, Lemon Juice, Rosemary, Salt and Pepper. When the pasta is done cooking put it back into the hot pot and add some of the liquid from your veggie mixture into it so it does not sick together. Now you are ready to layer your Happy Bowl. Pasta, Veggie Mixture, Sausage and then Basil on top.

This dish is fragrant, colorful, hearty, and tastes so good!