Friday, March 29 Pasta Shells with Veggies and Cashew Sauce Rating: 4.5

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this, but we recently got a new toy. I really wanted to give a try on cashew cream sauce, since it’s one of the reasons I wanted one so badly. A while back, we made a batch of the cashew mac & cheese from The Vegan Table. It was really good, but the sauce is much more like an alfredo-style than what you may think of as a cheese sauce. It makes a lot, so the last time we made it, I used the leftovers on broccoli and whatnot. Which gave me the idea to just use it as a cream sauce over pasta with a ton of veggies. I reduced the amount of oil in the original recipe, because it’s a lot and I don’t think it harms the final sauce at all. I settled on some of those little pasta shells; better for holding the sauce. The veggies we used were pretty much the odds & ends in the fridge – broccoli, spinach, bell pepper, that sort of thing. Seth made a kick-ass salad and garlic bread that I’m pretty sure is the 8^th Deadly Sin. Here’s how he does it: take a small baguette & slice it in half lengthwise; take a head of garlic & mince most of it (really, most of it); pour way too much olive oil into a pan and add the garlic; season with a mix of dried Italian herbs & let the garlic get slightly brown; spoon the garlic & oil over the bread & bake at 425 until toasty; eat way too much and enjoy the decadence.