Recipe: Creamy Vegan Pesto

It's not easy being green. Or having too many greens in your fridge. So I decided to use up some of the greens I got in a recent Fresh Fork Market CSA bag by making pesto. I loosely followed this recipe for simple vegan pesto, but I improvised. A lot. Mainly because the basil plant in my garden is growing at a snail's pace, but still...

The result? A frighteningly green but amazingly delicious pasta dish.

Creamy vegan pesto over farfalle pasta

Ingredients:

• 1 cup basil leaves
• 2 cups greens - kale, swiss chard, etc.
• 3/4 cup pine nuts, walnuts, or sunflower seeds
• 2-3 cloves garlic
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons vegan cream cheese
• 1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
• almond milk - add as needed to create a creamy texture/consistency

Method:

1. Put all ingredients in food processor of blender and mix until creamy and smooth. Add almond milk as needed to create thinner consistency.
2. Serve over pasta, on bread, or any other way you like to eat pesto. 

This was possibly the easiest recipe ever. We had to do some finagling to get the taste right. Depending on the greens you use, your sauce could taste too green. If you add too much garlic, the sauce can be overpowering. Add nutritional yeast at your own discretion, too. A little goes a long way, but if you like the flavor of it, by all means, add more. I've read that this recipe is good if you add vegan parmesan cheese into it, but I didn't have enough on hand to try it. But I did sprinkle some on top of my pasta and it definitely enhanced the flavor of the pesto. Overall, this was a quick and easy way to make up some fresh sauce and use up a lot of our greens. I'll definitely be making this again!

Review: Victoria Vegan Vodka Sauce

I have a minor obsession with pasta sauce. I've been known to eat it straight from the jar. Often. My favorite kind of pasta sauce (besides the 365 brand original pasta sauce from Whole Foods) is vodka sauce, but since I've gone vegan, I haven't had too much of it since it's typically made with cream. I make a decent vegan spicy tomato cream sauce myself, but I don't always have time to whip up a sauce from scratch.

I always look for new vegan foods when I'm wandering around Whole Foods and I stumbled upon Victoria's Vegan Vodka Sauce a couple weeks ago.

Victoria Vegan Vodka Sauce

This sauce is amazing. Creamy. Flavorful. And you would never, ever, ever guess it's vegan. We liked it so much that I made a big batch of pasta for a party and served it up to non-vegans. I got a lot of compliments on the sauce and no one could even tell that it wasn't made with real dairy. (cashew cream is so versatile, isn't it?) 

Like most cream sauces, this isn't a "healthy" food by any means, but once in awhile a little gluttony won't kill you. And I've noticed that a little bit of this sauce goes a long way, so if you're counting calories like I am, you probably don't even need to use one whole serving on your pasta.

We tried a creamy pesto sauce from Victoria and I wasn't nearly as impressed, but I still plan on trying some of their other vegan options. This is definitely worth checking out if you love vodka sauce and don't have the time to make it yourself. It's so good that no one will guess it's vegan - or from a jar.