Creamy Carbonara

One recipe Paul and I keep on coming back to is this Creamy Carbonara by Deliciously Ella. We have cooked it plenty of times in our kitchen and also served it as a casual dinner for our friends. Most of our friends have said afterwords that they could never imagine a 100% plant-based pasta be so creamy and rich, without any added cheese or cream! One guy even said to me the day before the dinner that he would never get full by eating a vegan meal... I took on the challenge and thought this creamy pasta couldn't be a better test! He of course ended up full, really full! And with a new view on vegan food. 

 

One of the purposes of this blog is to  inspire people to eat more greens and show that plant-based food can be both delicious, easy to cook, and very satisfying, and of course one way of doing that is to share my favourite recipes. Last weekend I met a friend who specifically asked for this recipe so I happily wanted to share it now. Here you go!  

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As always when I cook, I never follow the recipe completely, I improvise along the way and make changes depending on what we have in our fridge. I know we have used zucchini in this recipe before, and that was very nice, as well as asparagus. The original recipe as above is taken from the cook book Deliciously Ella Everyday. 

Ingredients for 4 portions:

For the sauce:

  • 150 g cashew nuts

  • 200 g butternut squash (or sweet potato)

  • 2 tsp nutritional yeast

  • 3 tsp tamari soy sauce 

  • 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

 

For the pasta:

  • 400 g pasta 

  • 100 g frozen peas

  • 2 garlic cloves, crushed

  • 200 g mushrooms, finely sliced

  • olive oil

  • 200 g spinach

 

Directions:

  1. Soak the cashews in a bowl of water for three to four hours.

  2. Peel and chop the squash or sweet potato, place it in a steamer and steam for 15 minutes (or boil if you don’t have a steamer), until really soft.

  3. Discard the water that the cashews have been soaking in, then tip them into a blender with the squash/sweet potato and all the remaining sauce ingredients. Pour in 200ml of water and blitz everything together.

  4. Put the pasta in a pan of boiling water and cook according to the packet instructions. Add the peas two minutes before the end of cooking time.

  5. While they cook, sauté the garlic and mushrooms in a little olive oil, adding the spinach towards the end so it wilts.

  6. Once the peas and pasta are cooked, drain them, then mix them with the sauce, mushrooms and spinach to serve.

 

 

RecipesAubrey Moller