Another night, another McDougall recipe this week. His is Baked Penne Florentine, but I added the baby bellas to make it a little more substantial and add some more flavors to this dish and it turned out to be good! It uses cashews as the base of the creamy sauce so it adds protein with a little bit of fat, and you add in different flavors to make it flavorful and the pasta bakes in the sauce. I made a few changes to the recipe (per usual), but it’s generally the same if you want to look up his version online. I have his app on my phone, but you find recipes online as well. Josh said “hey this isn’t bad!”… to which he learned doesn’t sound very nice and then changed it to “hey this is pretty good!” to put a more positive spin on it! I think he still gets surprised how good plant based food can be and every day (well most of them) he gets pleasantly surprised. I roasted some of my leftover cauliflower from a previous night as a side with some garlic powder, salt, and pepper, so sorry for the beige meal but it was much tastier than it looks!

Baked Penne Mushroom Florentine

1 lb whole wheat penne pasta

16 oz frozen chopped spinach

1 10 oz baby bella mushrooms pack, sliced

1.5 cup vegetable broth and 1/4 cup water, mixed

1 onion, diced

1/2 cup raw cashews

1 15 oz can white beans, I used cannelloni

1 tbsp low sodium soy sauce

2 tbsp lemon juice

3 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 tsp dry mustard powder

1/4 cup breadcrumbs

salt and pepper

1. Preheat oven to 375* and cook pasta to al dente and drain.
2. Add spinach to drained pasta in a large pot and stir together.
3. In a skillet, saute onion and mushrooms until tender (about 5 min) and add mushrooms to pasta pot.
4. In a food processor or high speed blender, process cashews until powder and add half of the broth and blend until smooth.
5. Add in the other half of broth and water mixture, beans, garlic, soy sauce, mustard, lemon juice, pepper, and onions and blend until smooth.
6.  Add sauce to pasta, spinach, mushroom mixture and combine, then spread into a 9×13 baking dish and sprinkle with breadcrumbs, salt and pepper.
7. Bake uncovered for 10-20 minutes until bottom is bubbly and top is golden.