Pasta Primavera with Pesto Alfredo

I am tired and just jotting down what it occurred to me to make for dinner tonight so I don't forget later when I am more tired and have to do this.  I made the garlic scapes and carrot greens into a (hefty amount of) rough pesto with some pine nuts, olive oil, and salt.  There was a lot more finished product than I intended.  I'm going to throw some of it into the Vitamix with some water, raw cashews, and seasonings to taste and make it into a pesto alfredo sauce.  Apparently you can make anything into a vegan cream sauce by running it through a blender with raw cashews and water and seasoning it to taste.  I've done this a couple times now (for pesto alfredo and a vodka-less vodka sauce) and it is easier than I would have expected and very forgiving since you fix the thickness and flavor while it's still in the blender.  Just err on the side of too thick since you can always add water but it's harder to cook it out.

I think I have Tofurky brand vegan chik'n strips in the fridge, and if I don't, I definitely have Tofurky brand Italian sausage.  They add a lot in terms of flavor and how filling the dish is.  I also have whole wheat penne for this.

I'm going to blanch the fresh fava beans and throw at least some of them into this pasta dish along with some of the fresh English peas, one or two of the little summer squash sliced, and some broccoli florets and sliced bell pepper from the freezer.  And maybe one of the fresh shallots from the farm box.  And some of the red basil.  I tried putting the red basil in a sandwich yesterday and it was not good for that.  It has a nice, fairly typical basil flavor, but it's too strong to use as sandwich greens and the stems are too fibrous to chew, so I'll have to rip off some of the leaves and just throw them into this whole thing at the end.  Or add them to the blender while I'm making the sauce.  I'm not sure which will make it a weirder, less appetizing color (red basil is the brownish color of pretty much any other red lettuce).  It should taste nice though. 

[Edited after dinner:  The sauce contained a generous scoop of my homemade garlic scape pesto, water, raw cashews, salt, some dry oregano, fresh red basil, and fresh ground black pepper.  I don't know amounts because I kept messing with it, but it was probably around half a cup each of the pesto and the cashews and maybe a cup of water (definitely don't take my word for it on the water).  The vegan parmesan on top from the produce department -- I can't remember the brand -- was a really good addition, probably because the sauce needed lemon or something equivalently tangy and I didn't think to include any.  The garlic scape pesto had a serious bite to it from CONTAINING MOSTLY GARLIC so my primary goal was evening out the final sauce so it wasn't too spicy.  The rest of the ingredients were a couple of fresh shallots thinly sliced, a few baby summer squash sliced, fresh English peas, fresh fava beans that I'd blanched and double shelled (today I learned fresh fava beans have a really nice texture), some leftover diced yellow bell pepper, and Tofurky chick'n strips lightly sauteed in olive oil.  I ended up using whole wheat spaghetti because I felt like the thicker, chewier texture of the penne would've been overpowering with all these small, tender vegetables.  Farfalle would've also worked.]