Raw Alfredo Sauce!

Last night, I had no beans pre-soaked for dinner (read: still getting used to the pre-planning needed for cooking from scratch on a continual basis) so we decided to have a pasta dish. Harris Teeter had recently had a buy 2 get 3 free on their whole wheat pasta, so I had bought quite a bit. I pulled out some whole wheat linguine noodles and asked DH what kind of sauce he wanted. I was sure he would say Ragu. A few years ago we fell in love with Mama's Secret Garden Sauce and never looked back. I think we have one lone jar left in the cabinet since we decided to eliminate as many processed foods from our diet as possible. I was fully prepared to pull it out and heat it up. But DH said, "Aren't you going to make a sauce?" That was all the motivation I needed!

My mind immediately went to alfredo sauce. Mmm...cheesy, yummy alfredo sauce. But, since we are trying to incorporate a more veggie, vegan, and raw lifestyle we've seriously reduced/eliminated dairy. So, my best friend Swagbucks and I searched for a raw alfredo sauce, and we found a yummy one!

The recipe called for soaked cashews and since I hadn't planned ahead, mine weren't soaked. The recipe turned out fine, just a little gritty, but it really didn't affect the taste at all. We ended up with leftover noodles though, so today I tried again with soaked cashews and the sauce turned out SO CREAMY!! Seriously, I don't think you'd be able to tell real alfredo sauce apart from this one!

First you make cashew cream. Here's the link for the recipe I followed. For my second attempt at this recipe (the one that turned out the best), I used a little more than a half cup of cashews rinsed, then soaked for an hour, then rinsed again. I put those into my Blendtec along with about a cup or so of water, a squirt of agave, and a little bit of pink Himalayan salt. I blended that twice until creamy.

Then I left the cashew cream in the blender and roughly followed this recipe. I added the juice of half an organic lemon, about a tablespoon of South River Miso (today, chickpea; last night, three year barley), a clove of fresh garlic, a chunk of raw onion, about a tablespoon of olive oil, and two heaping pinches of nutritional yeast flakes. The recipe called for 2 tablespoons of nutri yeast but I easily put double that. We like it CHEESY!

Then I just blended until smooth. It was ultra thick and creamy! Last night we ate it with linguine and lightly steamed broccoli. Today we had it with linguine and lightly steamed asparagus. Both meals were delicious!

All the yumminess of alfredo sauce without the guilt! And while very filling, this alfredo sauce doesn't leave you with that super heavy feeling after eating either! Eat up!