Rustic Primavera Pasta with Vegan Rose Sauce

Dinner tonight was inspired by my lovely afternoon spent at the Power of Women conference at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

Okay to be honest most of it was a bit of a yawn and at points it was downright offensive BUT I went because the keynote speaker was none other than gay icon/heartthrob/superhero Ellen Degeneris.

let's all let out a collective swoooooooon

I have been a huge fan of Ellen for a long time now. In fact when I was in elementary school I wrote a book report on Ellen’s autobiography. The assignment was to choose a piece of non-fiction writing that we felt inspired by. Other children chose to write about key historical figures like Nelson Mandela, Marie Curie and Ghandi. But for me, a sassy 4th grader who spelled women with a “Y” (because the word men in our name when they don’t define who we are…obvz) and spent most of my life living on an organic farm/hippie commune, Ellen’s unique brand of spunky, self-effacing joi de vivre seemed to strike a chord. I saw her as a woman who had experienced alienation as a young person and bigotry as an adult but still managed to muddle through it all with compassion and a crooked half smile the world can’t help but love.

I’ll stop gushing. Really I will. But not before passing along the recipe I used for my dinner tonight. And in honour of Ellen’s kind animal lovin’ heart, it has a little vegan twist.

Vegan Rose Sauce:

• 2 tbsp hummus
• 2 tbsp nutritional yeast
• 1/2 cup (or a little more) of unsweetened almond breeze or other non-dairy milk
• 1/4 cup fire roasted diced tomatoes (or use regular but add a little smoked paprika or liquid smoke)
• Salt (I used lightly seasoned herbamare)
• Pepper