Ultimate Vegan Alfredo Recipe

On our last trip to Napa, Tim and I picked up a bottle of wine from Mendocino that I've been saving for a special occasion. My last home-cooked meal in our current apartment seemed ideal. It's a smokey roset that I remember thinking would go well with cheese, if only I ate it. So instead I attempted a vegan fettucine alfredo.

I've made my share of vegan cream sauces before, usually cashew-based, but they usually taste... well, cashew-based. And nothing like the creamy Italian sauce I grew up with. But with the advent of the miracle food that is Daiya (seriously, who do I need to bribe to get this stuff into Australia?) I thought I might be able to make a better go of it.

And how right I was! I might make some tweaks if I were to attempt this recipe again, but this worked pretty darn well for me tonight:

Vegan Alfredo Sauce Recipe:

1/2 Cup Earth Balance

1 Cup Soy Creamer (I used Wildwood)

1/2 Cup cashew cream

2 Cloves garlic minced as finely as possible

1 tsp nutritional yeast

Cracked pepper to taste, a pinch of mutmeg

1 Cup Daiya Italian vegan cheese

Basil for garnish

1 lb. Fettucine

It's pretty simple. Start off by boiling your water for the pasta. Mix together all the ingredients but the Daiya in a pan over medium heat until it reaches a low boil. Reduce heat and simmer. Once you put the pasta in to boil, you can add the Daiya to your sauce mixture. Stir continuously until you get a creamy sauce. If it's too thick, add more creamer or soy milk to thin it out.

Drain the pasta and ladle on the sauce generously. Top with a basil chiffonade if you're feeling fancy. It's good with some sort of green veggie side like steamed broccoli with lemon juice.

It may not be the healthiest meal ever... in fact, for the sake of my new year's resolution, we'll pretend it never happened. But it's the closest I've come to replicating an authentic alfredo sauce and still probably way less heart attack-inducing. I sort of have this idea in my head that because everyone in Australia is so fit that as soon as I arrive there, I'll just start shedding pounds by proxy. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Christmas in the Desert

Just got home last night after a whirlwind holiday trip. I spent several days in Henderson, Nevada (a suburb of Las Vegas) which is the town my parents moved to about five years ago. It's still odd spending Christmas in the desert, especially when I grew up with snowy New York winters, but I suppose considering how my husband got snowed in for days while visiting his friends and family in DC, I'll gladly take a little sunshine.

My parents also went out of their way this year to make it feel homey and welcoming for us by making a vegan Christmas dinner for the whole family for the first time ever. I wish I could take the credit, but it turns out that now that Ellen Degeneres is vegan, and not just their hippie daughter, they're down with it. I made a vegan version of my mom's stuffed shells for Christmas Eve, filled with tofu, spinach, ground walnuts and Daiya, and covered in homemade tomato sauce, basil and even more Daiya goodness. Hooray for the Henderson Whole Foods which, in addition to the locations in Las Vegas, carries the vegan cheese.

My dad made some vegan potato pancakes that were awesome and did not fall apart. I'll have to get him to send me the recipe. For Christmas Day I made an easy little side salad and my Mom made vegan pot pies from scratch, inspired by a recipe they saw on the Ellen Show. For dessert I made this chocolate mousse topped with fresh berries.











And of course, no trip to Las Vegas would be complete without a stop at Ronald's Donuts. Word to the wise though, you best get there early if you want a good selection. They were nearly sold out when we got there at 2:00, but we did walk away with some awesome turnovers. The day after Christmas we embarked on a little roadtrip, which I'll report on next time. Hope you all had a wonderful holiday celebration -- or at least some relaxing downtime!

Delicious Daiya - Recipe and Photos

When I first decided I was going to try out being vegan in 2005 I made an ill-fated trip to my natural food store to pick up some shiny new products including a block of soy cheese that was hard, gray, and smelled like sweat socks. "I've been tricked," I thought. The pizza cravings set in pretty quickly. There was a place near Tim's apartment that advertised vegan pizza that was pretty decent but we eventually learned they were using casein-based cheese. Bastards!

Eventually I learned of Follow Your Heart brand soy cheese which made a reasonable substitute in small quantities and I started making pizza at home. Sometime in 2008 I believe, Chicago Soy Dairy came out with Teese. It was basically love at first taste. It melted so much better and the taste was a little uncanny. (Tim actually didn't care for the nacho Teese because he thought it tasted too much like the real thing.)

And then along came Daiya. For months I've heard it being hailed as the holy grail of vegan cheese, so when Rainbow Grocery finally started carrying it, I stocked up. It is very good. Perhaps I've gotten spoiled, but it didn't blow me away like I thought it would. But it has a lot of advantages going for it: it melts much faster than other vegan cheeses, it lasts a long time in the fridge, it comes pre-shredded, and it is soy-free, made rather from casava root.

I bought kind of a ridiculous amount of it though and I'm still looking for dishes to use it up. Here's a little collage of meals I've made with it so far:
Starting at the top we've got a veggie pizza and a basic spaghetti marinara (made with Mariquita Farms tomatoes). The middle two are from a lasagne which was awesome. By far the best vegan lasagne I've ever had. Bottom right we've got tempeh marinara with breadsticks and salad. The salad had Daiya in it too because I find that it works really well as a Parmesan substitute as well as a mozzarella. That's what inspired the last dish.

When I was just vegetarian I used to make this all the time using Parm, and it was probably really bad for me. I modified the recipe to make it a bit healthier and will share it for you here:

Whole Wheat Spaghetti with Broccoli, Chard, and Daiya

While your pasta water is boiling, chop up one stalk of broccoli into small pieces. Steam it in a covered pan for just 2 minutes or so so it's still somewhat firm. Add a tablespoon or olive oil, one chopped clove of garlic, a pinch of thyme, and a cup of chopped chard. (Spinach would work as well.) Add some vegetable broth keep it cooking and liberally add salt and black pepper. Once your pasta has nearly finished cooking add 1/4 cup of Daiya Italian cheese to the broccoli mix and keep stirring. Drain your pasta and toss it right into your pan to mix it all up.

Plate it and top it with some more Daiya and extra black pepper (you really can't use too much). It makes either one really large serving or two small ones.

If you've got any great recipes using Daiya let me know. Or if you can think of any meals you used to enjoy with mozzarella or parmesan and would like to see veganized, I'm always willing to give that a shot!