Everyone loves pasta in our household, but we very seldom eat it.

I try every now and then to make homemade pasta, but seriously who am I kidding??? I work fulltime, I come home and I try to have a life and in between that I still make homemade pasta. I don’t think so, it just seems more simply and easier to buy the ready made stuff from the store.

Yes, I am allowed to make the above statement, because yes I have made homemade pasta and let me just tell you, it had to stand overnight to dry before being store away and it came out so little and then there is the whole cleaning of the machine…. Nope, never going to happen again. The cleaning part is what killed me in the end.

I came across this recipe in one of my new vegan books, well not really new, I bought them last year as a Valentines gift to myself and well it took me exactly 360 days to open them and find a recipe to use.

Seeing as I am always making chicken carbonara for my dad and myself, when I saw the vegan version for this recipe in the book, I decided to give it a try. It was always an excuse to finally break the seals of some of my new vegan products.

Making the pasta sauce was really really fun and I finally got to try out my new steamer and pasta pot both at the same time. I killed two birds with one stone.

My mother loved this pasta, even I loved it and well my dad… well my dad is another story all together. When he dished up for my mother, he had no idea what the dish was and he rolled it up on a roti and gave it to my mother… that was the highlight of a lazy Sunday lunch.

Ingredients for the sauce:

• 150g x cashew nuts, soaked in boiling water overnight.
• 200g x butternut, steamed till soft.
• 2 x tsp nutritional yeast.
• 3 x tsp tamari.
• ½ x tsp cayenne pepper.
• Juice of 1 lemon.
• 250ml x water
• Salt and pepper to season.

Method for the sauce:

• Drain water off the cashew nuts.
• Place it into a blender with all the other ingredients and blitz till nice and smooth.

Ingredients :

• 200g x pasta, cooked.
• 100g x frozen peas.
• 2 x cloves garlic, crushed.
• 200g x mushrooms, sliced.
• 2 x tsp olive oil.
• 200g x spinach, finely chopped.

Method:

• Heat oil in a pot.
• Add the mushrooms and saute till the mushrooms are soft.
• Add spinach and peas and cook till the peas are thawed.
• Add the pasta and mix.
• Add in the sauce and toss till well combined.
• Allow the sauce to heat through before removing from the stove.