VEGAN SORT-OF CARBONARA

Kind of something like that yes.

I love pasta dishes! They are so easy to make and can be put together of pretty much anything at home. I think of this one here as a version on carbonara, although it rather perhaps should just be called a "veggie pasta. But, potato potato you know. Many vegan recipes I've seen use cashew cream to substitute the creaminess the eggs give, which is delish, but this one here just has zucchini to cream it up.

So you'll need some zucchini, garlic and a meat substitute. Veg bacon is the best in my opinion. But pretty much everything works, seitan, smoked tofu etc. I just had a bit of regular tofu at home so that had to do; I crumble and fry it so it ends up pretty "dry". Or, if you have nothing else then use sun dried tomatoes in small bits. I often use that on pizza as "pepperoni". And like here, with pasta.  I think the tomatoes have a meaty texture when dry and as they are strong in taste I find they replace bacon bits etc. pretty well. (Or then it's because I haven't had any such in over a decade and just can't remember :)

You can make the zucchini in two ways; either grate it and put in the pasta cooking water a couple of minutes before the pasta is done; it "melts" into a creamy texture around the pasta that way. (I sometimes do the grated-zucchini-in-the-water to be able to sneak more vegetables into the kid's food, and with good luck they don't even notice it...). Or, like I did here; chop it in tiny pieces (or grate it) and fry it with oil and the chopped garlic in a pan until it gets soft. If you want a more cheese like flavour to it, sprinkle in some nutritional yeast flakes when you're done. Fry your "bacon" and blend everything with the pasta. That's it!

Serve with salt and black pepper. I added some sun dried tomatoes anyway, because in my opinion they make everything a bit better.

PS. For a super easy two-ingredient ovo-vegetarian version try adding eggs (from as happy chickens as possible) with the pasta in the usual carbonara manner and use sun dried tomato bits as your meat. It's a nice combo!