Years ago, Olivia Wilde had a blog. I don’t know about anyone else, but I enjoyed what I read about her work and travel experiences and her home cooking. I stumbled upon her Bomb Diggidy vegan bolognese recipe and felt it looked interesting enough to try. Not being vegan, or even vegetarian, it was more to see if it was as tasty as it sounded. And it was. But it was an easy sell with the eggplant, mushrooms and tempeh, all of which are things I quite fancy myself.
In the last couple of days, I started seeing posts about her recipe again and tried to find her blog. Alas, it is gone, and replaced with a placeholder site of little things she felt like putting online. Not even a portfolio site, just miscellany. Which is a shame, because I liked her writing.
I’ve included the archived copy of her recipe from the Wayback Machine archive for her ‘authentic’ version. But you can also google it for republished variations on other sites. I’m not sure what the etiquette is for republishing a recipe from a defunct site, so hopefully Olivia Wilde won’t take exception to this.
Full disclosure, the pics are of the variation where I replaced the tempeh with actual beef mince, but it’s delicious either way. Hopefully Olivia won’t take exception to this either.
You can use a food processor as she has, or chop your veg up by hand depending on how you like your texture, and you can make some vegetable substitutions as long as you keep the ‘meat’ components of the tempeh and mushrooms in place, or substitute them with something equivalent for the ‘meaty’ texture. This is a great and substantial sauce base as is, and quick to make as a weeknight recipe (depending on how quick your prep is). When I make bolognese with this recipe, or any other, I have also thrown in red wine vinegar, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, tomato paste, cocoa and porcini powder (one or two of these, not all at once) to tweak the flavours of my pasta sauces when I feel like it, so as with all cooking, tinker with the seasoning to taste.
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4-6
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- a few splashes olive oil
- 1 tsp Earth Balance
- 1/2 onion
- 3 cloves garlic
- big bunch of mushrooms any and all kinds (well not all)
- 1/2 package tempeh
- 1/2 zucchini squash
- 1 eggplant
- a carrot
- 2 tomatoes boiled, skinned and pureed (or 1/2 of your favorite jar of tomato sauce if you’re pressed for time)
- bunch of basil
- bunch of Italian parsley
- oregano
- rosemary
- salt
- red pepper flakes
- red wine
Ingredients
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- Chop, and sauté onions and garlic in olive oil.
- Toss the mushrooms in the food processor (or chop them if you’re not as lazy as me) and stir into the pan. Do the same with the tempeh. These two ingredients make up the “ground meat” of this “bolognese” so keep that in mind when chopping, and make the pieces small.
- Splash in some red wine (just a sip or two) and a tsp of Earth Balance, and some salt, pepper, and stir.
- Chop up or food process your zucchini squash, eggplant, fresh basil, parsley, carrot, and whatever else looks good, and toss into the pan and stir.
- Add the tomatoes (or tomato sauce) and stir.
- Sprinkle in some oregano, rosemary, and red pepper flakes. This is basically the gist of it.
- Add a little more wine, salt, pepper, and let it it simmer for a while.
- When you’re ready to serve, throw some fresh chopped basil and parsley on top. Ta DA.
Personal Notes:
If you want to make this with meat, you can sub out the tempeh and mushrooms for mince. But I like mushrooms in my bolognese.
I've also subbed out zucchini for celery because I had some I needed to use up.
And vary the quantity of the eggplant if you wish depending on the size of your eggplant. I use half a large eggplant or 2 of the long ones. I also don't peel the eggplant because I'm lazy, and don't find it affects the overall texture once it has been cooked.