Pasta Primevera revisited

2 weeks ago, I made Pasta Primevera from Forks over Knives. See my post and review here. It was great, but I couldn't get all the girls to eat it since the veggies and the sauce were cooked together. Tonight, I ran to my favorite produce market and saw asparagus. I got a hankering and some inspiration. I decided to take apart the recipe and make things separately and use asparagus. Here's what I did:

Sauce

4 cups low-sodium vegetable broth
1 cup raw cashews
2 cup soy milk
1 cup oat flour
garlic (to taste 1-4 cloves)
2 teaspoons dried basil
2 teaspoons dried oregano
(Double the other recipe, but I made more noodles and I wanted to have some left over to try on broccoli and kale!)

Pasta
16 ounces of whole wheat fusili
(Not gluten free, but you can use whatever noodle you like! The quinoa noodles that were in the original recipe were great, but I didn't have any and didn't go to the store that had them.)

Veggies
1 medium onion
2 bunches of fresh asparagus
enough veggie broth to first sauté the onions and then the asparagus (I had to add more as I started the asparagus.)
cherry tomatoes


First, I ground the cashews and oats into flour.

At the same time (in 3 pans):
I heated the 4 cups of vegetable broth, and the non-dairy milk with the garlic, basil, and oregano.
I boiled the water for the pasta.
I sautéed the onions in veggie broth.

I cooked the pasta while the onions and sauce ingredients heated. The pasta finished and I drained it; the onions finished and I set them aside; then I mixed in the oat flour and cashews in the veggie broth, non-dairy milk, and spices.  I stirred forever trying to get it smooth; it was very clumpy.  I would have stuck it back in my blender to smooth it, but I already had our green smoothie blending in the blender.  With a lot of stirring, the sauce turned out just fine without the blender.

I mixed the sauce and the pasta (not all of the sauce, just enough to cover the noodles well), and then set about cooking the asparagus.  I gave the younger two girls their bowls of noodles and sauce and then served Nick, Natalie, and me the good stuff....  noodles with the heavenly asparagus, a little more sauce, and cherry tomatoes. When I presented this to Nick, he ran to get the camera and snapped the picture below.

And now the report of who ate it...  Kira and Tia (the younger two girls) ate a LOT of the sauce with noodles. They drank their kale smoothie so I didn't force the asparagus on them. Nat had two large-ish bowls (with veggies).  Nick and I stopped (mostly) at one bowl.  I will make this again.  As I thought when I made it the first time, it's a very flexible dish! The sauce is great with asparagus. It'd be super with any vegetable.  Enjoy!