Best Pasta Dinner Ever

I almost had to use the flash in this picture Friday morning because it was too dark and grim to do it with natural light. But luckily there was just enough.  

 

Look how grey and horrible it was outside!  It looked like this pretty much all day.  No fun at all. 

 

Fortunately I had some lovely cherries to snack on mid-morning to remind me it was supposedly summer. 

And when that didn't quite do the trick to lift my spirits I ate a big spoonful of white chocolate wonderful peanut butter.  Everything looks a little brighter if you've just had some peanut butter. 

 

A little later I took a break from work and used my lunch hour to read on the exercise bike.  The workout room in my apartment building is in the basement with no windows, so when you're down there you can't tell what the weather's like outside.  It could be bright and sunny, raining, or nighttime.  It's all the same.  It's not so great to be down there when it's nice out, but it's just perfect on a rainy day when you don't want to go out anyway. 

 

Sitting on the bike to read is also a great way to get two things done at once.  It's not a great workout, but it's better than sitting in a chair doing nothing while you read.  On the agenda for this bike reading session was Solaris, which is my sci-fi book club's June book. 

 

After biking and cleaning up I was pretty hungry for some real food, so I whipped up some pasta with the last of the meatballs from meatball sub dinner on Thursday night. 

 

Once my boyfriend got home I got around to making the best dinner ever!!!  That might seem like an exaggeration, but I assure you it's not. 

 

I started with some cashew cream I'd made during the day, which included soaked cashews, rice milk, salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, and nutritional yeast.  I didn't measure any of these, but just added what looked right and then tasted the product until I liked it. 

 

I cooked up some spaghetti noodles and while those boiled I sauteed some chopped leeks, mushrooms, and shallots.  Then I mixed everything together with the cashew cream sauce, and topped with a bit more salt and pepper. 

This dinner was so good I'll definitely be making it again.  My boyfriend even remarked that this would be a good vegan dish to use to impress his parents about the merits of vegan cuisine.  You would never, ever miss the cheese in this one.