Three weeks ago I packed my life into 12 boxes and moved across the country. I left a job that I was happy with, family that I love and friends that added a lot of smiles and laughter to my everyday life … Now, I’m frantically looking for a job and I don’t know anyone. But you know what? I’m excited! I love that I don’t know what’s next. The “predictability” variable is gone. The world is my oyster, now more than ever. I’m on the road to self discovery.
On this journey of self discovery I’ve found that, for moral reasons, I’m finding it difficult to eat meat and animal products. So, I’m test driving the vegan lifestyle with the exception of eating fish (I blame this on my recent yoga studio membership .. those hippies are rubbing off on me). In turn, I’ve been fanatically looking up vegan recipes on pinterest and in honor of my recent lifestyle change I went a little crazy and ordered some vegan cookbooks because you gotta own a vegan cookbook to be legit (i.e. deliciously ella …I’m obsessed!). In my search I found an Alfredo recipe on healthyhappylife.com. I assumed it would be impossible to mimic the creamy, cheesy, amazingness that the combination of Parmesan, butter, and heavy cream provides, but I was WRONG! This magical recipe provides a velvety, creamy, melt-in-your-mouth, deliciousness that is super easy to make. If you gave me a bite of this without telling me that it’s vegan, I wouldn’t believe you!
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups of soaked raw cashews (soak in hot water for 2 hours or more)
2 lemons juiced
1 tsp lemon zest (1/2 for sauce and 1/2 for garnish)
1 cup non-dairy milk (I used soy creamer from Trader Joes because it’s creamy and neutral)
2 Tbsp miso paste
1/2 cup nutritional yeast
1/4 cup olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
Optional: vegan shredded mozzarella cheese to top with
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cook pasta of your choice. Drain and mix in a teaspoon of olive oil so that the noodles don’t stick together while you’re making the sauce. Set aside.
3. In a food processor combine all of the ingredients listed above and blend until very smooth (about 2 minutes).
4. Combine and mix pasta and sauce together. Pour pasta into a casserole dish. Top with remaining lemon zest, salt and pepper. Bake for 15 minutes.
Healthy Simple Cooking 