Penne with Vegan Pesto & Feta

Today's lunchbox contains one of my favorite things to eat, yummy whole wheat penne pasta covered with pesto. I have always loved pesto, even before I became vegan, and luckily, pesto is one of those things where the vegan version tastes pretty much identical to the non-vegan one. The pesto dish is really two new recipes in one as I continue my quest to try a few new recipes instead of just relying on my favorites that I seem to make over and over again.

The pasta is just a whole wheat penne that I picked up at the grocery store. I did scan the ingredients quickly though because I have been burned on pasta before. Sometimes they will sneak egg whites or something like that in on you. The pesto sauce that I made is Tyler & Phoebe's Perfect Pesto Sauce from La Dolce Vegan by Sarah Kramer. It's delicious. It's just like making regular pesto except you leave out the Parmesan cheese. Other than that, all of the ingredients are the same. At some point in the future, I would also like to try Isa's pesto recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance because I noticed that it uses walnuts instead of pine nuts. I really need to find a better source for pine nuts than my local grocery store. I get so mad every time I buy them there because they are $5 for this teeny tiny little bag. I know they can be had for less. They are so yummy, but I would like to try making pesto with walnuts sometime too. I have read good things about it on other message boards.

I also threw some Faux Feta Cheese (also from La Dolce Vegan by Sarah Kramer) on top of the pesto. It's good, although I think that the next time I make it I will add more salt than the recipe called for. From what I remember from back when I used to eat Feta, it basically just tastes like salt, which I why I liked it so much. This stuff is good, but it seems like more of the flavor comes from the red wine vinegar and the herbs than from salt. I will make it again, but I would like to experiment with it.

I threw in a nice salad with some big black olives on it to go with my pasta. I thought about bringing a different salad dressing than the Brianna's Poppy Seed Dressing that I have been bringing all week, but I couldn't think of any that I would rather have so yes, I brought it again.

I toasted up a few slices of garlic toast and this time I remembered to bring my other little blue container with some Galaxy Vegan Parmesan in it. I'll dump that on my pasta right before I eat it.

So I guess that does it for Wednesday's lunch.

Thanks for coming by and I'll see everybody tomorrow!