My favorite dish these days is VeganYumYum’s Super Quick Tomato Basil Cream Pasta.  In my hands it’s not exactly super quick (more like 45 minutes), but it’s pretty easy and should be quicker for you.  Basically, you blend cashews and a tomato to make a sauce, which you heat up with garlic and toss with pasta and fresh basil.  A few more ingredients are involved, but that’s the gist (and you could probably make a tasty dish using that description alone).  The result is a wonderfully creamy pasta experience.

I’ve made this stuff four times since I discovered it six weeks ago, and have played around with some variations.  I subbed almonds for cashews once; the result was a grainier, but still fairly creamy sauce.  Another time, when I was desperate, I tried subbing chickpeas and some nooch- not good.  The sauce was liquidy and lacked the richness that makes it so good.  Bottom line: stick with cashews.  I’m curious how canned tomatoes would affect this recipe, but considering my success with substitutions, I think I’ll stick with fresh.  And don’t use dried basil, please!  The sauce is good enough to hold its own, but the fresh basil really makes it special.

Yesterday I made this with a yellow tomato, which (as I found out) tastes exactly the same as the red kind.  Here’s the sauce (with pasta cooking in the background)- I like that it looks like cheese sauce.

And the final result.  It’ll look more orange-y (and less like plain pasta) if you use a typically-hued tomato.