Clapping over a Pot

Forgive me kittens. Even with a good camera and somewhat ok light, it is terribly difficult to take an attractive picture of a creamy pasta dish. This doesn't come close to capturing in photo form just how good this was. The sides are simple- asparagus pan fried in a smidge of olive oil, seasoned with only black pepper and a hint of salt. The potatoes were roasted in the oven with sage, rosemary, garlic, and olive oil. The pasta sauce was made up of 3 colors of bell peppers, zucchini, squash, red onions, beets, and leftover swiss chard all sauteed in fresh garlic, red onions, and olive oil. Then it simmered in a light covering of homemade tomato sauce. In the end it was all doused in the red pepper cashew cheese sauce I discovered a while back. This velvety veggie goodness was piled on top of tri-color pasta, and served with onion poppyseed bread.

If you're eating vegan and you miss that creamy, rich mouthfeel and taste of buttery pastas, I highly suggest playing around with the hundreds upon hundreds of variations of cashew cheese out there in the wide world. Yes, nuts are fatty and higher calorie, but so is a pile 'o cheese and butter. In the end, you don't use that many nuts- this had 1/4 of a cup of raw, unsalted cashew nuts in it, and it fed 4 adults with two meals left over. So, very low nut to person ratio. Plus, the fat in nuts is the kind of fat that would make your body happy, and it would give you a high five for it, but really you'd just be standing in your kitchen clapping over a pot, so maybe don't do that ;)

Don't worry if your first tries at cashew cheese fail, I tried two recipes before I just kind of made up my own based on two others I combined. Any Google search of "vegan cashew cheese" will happily return heaps of pages for you to sift through. One thing I've found out- most include lemon juice, in copious amounts. The lemon gives it a necessary tart element, but I generally like using about half of what they suggest. I usually just squeeze out one lemon and call it a day. Let me know if you try any cashew cheese recipes!