I am not a vegan (I love meat), but I do love eating vegetables and sometimes my meals turn out that way.

This pasta sauce was an experiment and could have gone horribly wrong. But it didn’t, and I loved it, and I think others will too (especially if you like to have an über healthy meal occasionally).

Ingredients

1 540ml can chick peas, drained
1 796ml can diced tomatoes
1.5 red/yellow/orange bell peppers, chopped
0.75 c celery, chopped
1 head garlic, diced
2 medium yellow onions, chopped
4 large fresh kale leaves
2 tbsp dried basil
1.5 tsp salt
2 tsp ground pepper
2 tsp dried chili flakes (reduce or remove this if you can’t deal with a little spice — wuss)
2 tbsp olive oil
0.5 c red wine

Directions

Prep chick peas: blend in a food processor until almost smooth (use juice from the tomatoes as moisture when needed).

Prep kale: strip leafy parts from stalks (discard stalks or chop fine to add to sauce… whatever). Food process or blend until liquidy (add some juice from the tomatoes or add some tomatoes if necessary). This will look like runny pesto and it will smell pretty “green”: don’t worry, that gets cooked away.

Get a large saucepan. Set it at medium low heat. Add oil, garlic, onions and basil. Stir fry until the onions get really glossy and are about to start going clear (5-10 minutes).

Add wine (yay!), peppers, salt, ground pepper and chili flakes. Mix thoroughly.

Add ground chick peas, kale liquid (yum! ha ha ha) and tomatoes. Mix thoroughly.

Keep the temperature at medium low! (the sauce won’t be super wet and you don’t want to burn it)

Stirring regularly, bring the sauce to a good simmer. Reduce the temperature to low and cover.

Cook for 20-30 minutes, stirring regularly. (if it actually, somehow, does look too wet, remove the lid, raise the heat to medium low, and watch closely)

Remove from heat and let sit for 10 minutes. Make pasta! (or rice or quinoa or whatever — probably a little weird with potatoes or bread… so don’t do that).

Makes 4-5 servings.

Make it non-vegan by adding (glorious) cheese.