This week I cooked another vegan meal from the list of 85 Vegan Meals from Love and Lemons that I mentioned in my last post. I made the first recipe: Creamy Vegan Pasta. The recipe is linked here. Overall I was very pleased with this dish. It was a little irritating that I had to buy a food processor (I was at my apartment at school not at home so I did not have one), but I bought a little one for 10 dollars at Walmart and it worked perfectly. At first I thought it might be too small but I was halving the recipe because I was only cooking for myself and it worked out. 

Even though this recipe looks like mac and cheese, it is not. The sauce is made of white beans, vegetable broth, olive oil, and some spices including red pepper flakes. I like spice, so I think the red pepper flakes add a nice flavor and give the sauce some much needed spice. Without the red pepper flakes I think the sauce would have been too plain. 

I would recommend cooking the broccoli for a little longer than the recipe says. I personally am not a big fan of the trunk part of the broccoli tree (I do not know what it is actually called), and if I do eat them I need them to be on the softer side. The broccoli was a little undercooked for my liking so I would adjust as you see fit. 

I used whole wheat elbows for my pasta. I wanted to try the vegetable pasta but I was nervous because I have never had it before. If you are a fan of zoodles (zucchini noodles), I think this recipe would work well with them. 

My one issue with this recipe is that it does not reheat well. I made two servings so that I could put half of it in the refrigerator for during the week to save myself the time and struggle of cooking again. I like to be able to just heat up leftovers during the week so I can manage work and school without having to worry about cooking. I was really excited to have this recipe again because I enjoyed it the first time, but I was disappointed. The sauce reheated is not even a sauce, it is like a paste that just got stuck to the pasta and broccoli. It was not creamy at all, it was pasty. Obviously this is not the website’s fault, this is just a natural occurrence with certain foods I guess. It is like how I personally think burgers are never the same when you reheat them, but pizza can be just as good or even better depending on the pizza. If you want to try this recipe for yourselves, eat it when you first make it. Also, add red pepper flakes! It is a must trust me. Here is a picture of the creamy vegan pasta when I first made it: