Munchie Monday: Plant-based Garlic Alfredo Success

 This morning first thing I watched Dr. John McDougall on Chef AJ Live.  It was a two hour program but it was excellent. It was great to watch especially if you have diabetes or pre-diabetes. It would be good to watch if you have cardiovascular disease as well.  Probably any chronic illness could benefit from his treatment.

As a result of watching this, I am even more committed to keeping the added fats our of our food even if all the smart people in the world say that plant fats are really important for you. There is enough fat in food without adding more.  Even though I  do LOVE butter and even more, I love the olive oil with seasonings in it for dipping bread into. I can re-think after I have lost one hundred pounds. Or more.  Maybe re-think.  We will see.

So Dear One was hoping for a "less-interesting meal" for supper tonight.  Normally I would have suggested that the food we had already eaten was enough for today but since I love him, and since he printed out the menu I wrote out many MANY years ago when we were not plant-based eaters, I looked at it. And saw a possible meal.

Tonight's supper on the menu was supposed to be Fettuccini Alfredo.  Well, you know what that means: look for a plant-based Alfredo sauce alternative to the real dairy-and-fat thing.  As it happens I had already found one and had smartly put it in Notes on my devices. It was easily findable!!  So, I went to Food Lion and purchased the ingredients we did not have at the top of the cupboard/easily to be found for this recipe.  (I also took along about five other recipes to acquire those ingredients!  $37.58 later I headed for home!)

Plant  Garlic-y Alfredo Sauce (the way I made it)

1 large sweet onion, diced
1 cup homemade hot-off-the-Instant Pot vegetable broth, or more if needed for texture
 1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
3 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
1/2 cup roasted cashews--you should really use raw cashews but...
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
3 Tablespoons nutritional yeast

In a heavy-bottomed saucepan pour 1 cup vegetable broth, the diced onion, and chopped garlic.  Cover and cook for 8 minutes or until the onions are very soft.  Remove the lid a couple of times to stir and make sure there is enough liquid to keep the vegetables from burning.

While they are cooking, put the salt, pepper, cashews, and nutritional yeast in a bowl and get out the lemon juice.  Set these items by your blender. A high-speed blender is your friend for this but a regular blender will work, especially if you soak the cashews for 3 hours or more in water to cover.  When ready to put the cashew in the blender, drain the soaking water and discard it.

Once the onions and garlic are cooked, dump them into the blender with all the other ingredients.  Do not forget the lemon juice!

While all this has been going on, cook your pasta.  We used some "SuperGreens" Pasta.  It was green so you could almost believe the advertising!  Cook the pasta to your preferred texture.  We cooked it 7 minutes.

Drain pasta and return to pot.  Pour the sauce you have blended one minute, or until smooth and creamy, then scrape the sauce into the pasta.  Stir gently until well combined.

Dear One's first words were, "It is sweet."  I told him I had used sweet onions. I hope this means he might be willing to try some other sweet onion dishes I want to make.

Well, I am writing this near 7:00 on Saturday night. I am just about shot.  I have been busy today but not so that I should be this tired.  I think it must be the result of the chemo cream treatment.  I am SO GLAD that I should be done with this round of treatment come Thursday!  Do not think I will do it again...