Vegan: Savory Pasta Bake

This dish started off as a couple of tomatoes and trying to figure out what to do with them. I decided I wanted to make a fresh tomato sauce so I started with that.

I have only seen one person ever make fresh tomato sauce but never really done it myself. Taking a nonstick pot I poured in my tomatoes with a tiny bit of peanut oil, then I let it simmer for a couple of minutes. After it started getting soft I put in about 3 tablespoons of tomato paste (The amount depends on how many tomatoes you are using). Stirring in the paste I started to break up the tomatoes and then season them. I put in garlic,basil, Oregano, paprika, sazon (its a seasoning mix) and pepper. Since I made this at night I stored it in a container in the fridge for later usage. 


Knowing that I had tomato sauce already made I wanted to make some kind of pasta but I wasn't sure what kind. I'm not that big a fan of pasta but I figured I would make something that had several components. I settled on Pasta Bake since I had "cheese" and "ground beef".
Boiling the pasta in one pot (I used rotini) I cooked the meat in a different pan. I pretty much use similar seasonings for most of what I cook so I seasoned it the same as the tomato sauce, minus the sazon and basil. I did add instead some salt, nutritional yeast, flax seed and spinach.

After draining the pasta and putting it on a baking dish I poured in the meat then the sauce on top.

Then I mixed it all together, added some Daiya Mozarella cheese and covered it to bake.

Since Vegan cheese takes a little longer to melt than regular cheese I left it covered with aluminum foil in the oven for about 15 minutes or so. 

I mixed it all together and served in a bowl.

Serve it with a side salad or some garlic bread and enjoy. It was really savory and definitely hit the spot. I will definitely be making this again in the future.