Pasta with Creamy Vegan 'Alfredo' Sauce

So I had been working a lot. Like, a LOT. And when I wasn't working, I wasn't able to muster up the energy to write a post. My weeks this summer pretty went like this: work, work, sleep (a little), work, work, deposit self on beach, work (sometimes on beach), sleep (a little more), work. In the little time I had in between, I was reading. A lot. Too much, some (cough, boyfriend, cough) might say.

All of this reading, coupled with an over-reactionary stomach these past few months, has led me to make some changes in my diet. Big time changes. As in, no meat or dairy, kind-of-sort-of-vegan changes. I mean, I love me some cheese, though it has admittedly always weirded me out that we are the only species on earth that eats milk of other mammals intended for their young. Sick. Though cheese is delicious.



Now I don't think I can say that I'll be shunning meat and dairy forever, but I can see myself significantly restricting my intake of both for the near and not-so-near future. While I don't know that I could forever say goodbye to smoked salmon, I think I'd be doing both myself and the environment a favor by largely limiting the amount of animal products I consume. And I'm not going to put pressure on myself my placing a label on my diet. I'm not going to declare that I "am" anything, and then set lofty expectations for what I (or others) think my diet should comprise. If I want to be a "kind-of-sort-of-vegan, who sometimes eats smoked salmon, or lobster rolls or finds herself at a really great restaurant and wants to enjoy a meal sans dietary restrictions", so be it.

And honestly, it's been kind of fun. It's really exciting to get into the kitchen and wing it sometimes. To try to create really exciting meals without the crutch of bacon fat or the richness of eggs. This hasn't been about trying to recreate the non-vegan dishes I love: the macs & cheeses, the bacon egg and cheese sandwich because honestly, I don't miss them. I have not eaten a single slice of Tofurkey (nor do I intend to) - substituting meat and dairy with overly processed soy is not really going to do my body much good. This for me has been about creating foods that are delicious in their own right, but that are easy enough to digest and don't make me feel bloated or tired afterwards. But once in a while, only a creamy pasta dish is going to satisfy, and for those times, I'm glad I found a few vegan 'alfredo' sauce recipes to mash together into one. A garlicky, saucy alfredo facsimile that I felt not only not bad about eating, but great about eating.



Pasta with Vegan Alfredo Sauce

Adapted from here and here

The cashews lend this sauce a nice, creaminess, and together with the tahini and nutritional yeast give the dish a boost of protein. Nutritional yeast is a great resource for vegetarians and vegans, since it is one of very few non-meat sources of vitamin B12, and it has a vaguely cheesy taste. The sauce comes together in a blender, food processor or a magic bullet in a snap and needs just a couple of minutes of warming and thickening in a pot with the pasta, making this a very weeknight-doable meal.

I'd recommend only combining the pasta and sauce that you plan on eating at that time; if there are leftovers, the sauce and pasta / vegetables are better stored separately and reheated together in the pot when you're ready to eat the rest of what you've prepared. Once combined, the dish doesn't reheat as well, though if you have sauced pasta left over, adding a bit of almond milk when reheating will restore some creaminess to the dish.

Ingredients:

4 ounces pasta (I used whole wheat rotini)
1/2 cup frozen peas
1/2 cup chopped frozen broccoli
1/3 cup raw cashews
2 garlic cloves
3 T nutritional yeast
1 cup unsweetened, unflavored almond milk
1 T lemon juice (I added a bit more after tasting it)
2 T non-dairy buttery spread, such as Earth Balance
1 T low-sodium soy sauce
2 tsp Dijon mustard
1 T tahini
Pinch of nutmeg
1/4 t sea salt
1/2 tsp paprika
lots of freshly ground black pepper (or to taste I guess)

Process:

Cook pasta in well-salted water in a sauce pot. About two minutes before the pasta is to be al dente (don't cook it all the way in the water, since it will continue to cook a bit once the sauce is added), add the peas and broccoli to the pot with the pasta. Cook until the peas and broccoli are bright green and cooked, making sure not to allow them to get mushy. Drain the pasta and vegetables in a colander and return to the pot.

While the pasta is cooking, add the rest of the ingredients to your blender or magic bullet and blent until smooth. Taste and adjust seasoning as desired.

Add sauce to the pot with the pasta and vegetables and heat over medium heat. Allow the sauce to thicken and heat through, stirring frequently. Top with a few turns of freshly ground pepper and a dusting of paprika.

Serves 2.

Getting the Creative Juices Flowing

My bar review class started today. I know - I can’t believe it either. Despite the fact that I am two weeks from finishing my school obligations, and almost a full month from graduation, I am somehow still expected to attend draining barbri classes and do barbri reading and summarize notes and oh so many other things. Though the next two weeks will be mighty painful, the rest of the summer is what I find truly terrifying right now. This is essentially going to be my life for the next eight weeks: class, summarize, read, study, repeat.

The bright spot within this is that my class is in the loop, with farmers markets within a couple of blocks twice a week. This means, at least, that I can take a few minutes after class each day to relax, roam leisurely between stands and take that time for myself. The stress will no doubt build as the weeks before the exam turn into days and the opportunity to see what looks good, to talk to people, to figure out what to do with these goodies I pick up, even if it is just once a week, will hopefully be able to get my creative juices flowing at least enough to keep me sane.

This week at the farmer’s market, it was morel mushrooms and purple asparagus. The wonders of morels espoused by nearly every internet source in existence. I have tried them a couple of times though I had never cooked with them before. My plan at first was to simply sauté them and toss them with cream, a la Orangette, But I felt that wouldn’t spread the joy enough, since I don’t really have the money to buy a ton of morels, at least not enough to satisfy should I have served them piled atop toast.

Instead a decided to team them up with the purple asparagus and let them mingle among strands of pasta in a light cream sauce. I threw in some chicken for good measure, sprinkled some chopped chives and grated parmesan and it was delicious. Hopefully all my after-class ventures will be this rewarding.

Fettuccine with Chicken, Morels and Asparagus
Serves 4

This dish was light in spite of its cream base and truly tasted of spring. The pasta could have used a more generous helping of morels, but my wallet could also use a more generous helping of money.

10 ounces fettuccine
12 ounces chicken tenderloins
Olive Oil
4 tablespoons butter, divided
1 large shallot, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 lb asparagus, purple or otherwise
5 medium sized morels, gently cleaned and sliced crosswise
1 ½ cups dry white wine
1 cup heavy cream
Fresh chives, for garnish
Parmesan cheese, for garnish

Boil a large pot of water. Place the asparagus in the boiling water and cook until bright green and crisp-tender. Don’t overcook them and allow them to become soft. Remove from the water and place in an ice bath or run under cold water to stop the cooking. I cook the asparagus still in the rubber band to make this process easier. After the asparagus are done, drop the fettuccine into the boiling water.

As the pasta is cooking, heat a large skillet over medium-high heat and melt one tablespoon of butter in one tablespoon of olive oil. Sprinkle the chicken liberally with salt and pepper and brown in skillet, about 5 minutes per side, ensuring that chicken is cooked through (juices will run clear). Remove chicken from heat and set aside on a platter.

Lower the heat to medium. Heat three tablespoons of butter, add shallots and allow to cook for a couple of minutes before adding the garlic. When garlic becomes fragrant, add the morels; cook until soft. Pour the wine into the skillet and cook down a bit, about 2-3 minutes. Add the cream, bring to a boil and cook until mixture is reduced by half. As the sauce reduces, cut the chicken and asparagus into bite-sized pieces.

Once sauce is just about reduced, melt in another tablespoon of butter if you think the sauce needs thickening, then add the chicken and asparagus to the sauce and toss until warm. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Drain the cooked pasta and toss in sauce to coat. Divide among plates and garnish with chives and parmesan cheese.

Pasta Tragedy; Horseradish Hero

From time to time I come across a recipe that advertises itself as being time consuming. That’s not always a turn-off for me, though. For instance, I came across another Jacques Pépin recipe the other day and immediately went to the stove and spent what would end up being over two and a half hours composing a chicken and peanut stew (about which I will tell you all just a little bit later). Was it worth it? I think so – because I knew how long it was going to take going into it, the ingredients were relatively few, and the time it took was largely inactive, playing dominoes and watching television while the stew practically cooked itself. Yes I had to cut a few things here and there, but I find this chopping rather soothing.

Sometimes, however, there are recipes that take a lot longer than they taste like they should have taken. I stumbled upon one such recipe not too long ago. I was searching the epicurious database when I stumbled upon a recipe misleadingly entitled “salmon with orecchiette, caramelized onions and horseradish cream sauce.” The salmon was not tossed with the pasta, but served alongside it. But I love literally every component of this dish, so I figured I could not go wrong. I went to three different grocery stores in search of broccoli rabe (a vegetable that could very well be my single favorite food on planet earth), but my searches proved futile. It was not to be - I found none. I had read in the comments to the recipe on epicurious that a few people had replaced the broccoli rabe with broccoli with excellent results, and while I was skeptical, I followed suit. I was thisclose to plucking a bunch of arugula from the produce aisle, but I followed the road that was tried and - or so I thought - true.

So I began cooking – chopping, cooking, caramelizing onions. Yes, it smelled great, and yes, caramelized onions are awesome, but the end result was not really worth the process.



The pasta lacked depth - though it had the sweetness of the onions, it lacked the bitterness of the broccoli rabe, the very trait of the vegetable that enamours me so. It was totally divorced from the flavors of the salmon, since the bitter spiciness of the horseradish would have given reason for the broccoli rabe sitting next to it. The broccoli brought nothing to the dish. Even if I made the pasta on its own again, I would never dream of making it with anything but broccoli rabe (I guess I could give in to arugula since it has a spice to it as well). It was quite sad, all of it - a pasta with so much promise, falling so far short of its potential.

But the horseradish saved the day. Because of it, the salmon tale had a much happier ending. Cooked to perfection and drizzled with a deceptively simple horseradish sauce, its flavors were accentuated, rather than muted. While the pile of pasta sitting next to it had no place being there, the horseradish sauce was perfect. I mean, the combination is classic for a reason.



Salmon with Horseradish Cream Sauce
Bon Appetit, June 2003

This sauce is really great, and can be put to a plethora of uses. Try it over some roast beef or on a sandwich; or served with smoked salmon or trout; even as a dipping sauce for potato chips or french fries.

The sauce can be refrigerated, but when reheating make sure to heat it in a saucepan over low-moderate heat until it’s simmering. I would advise against heating it in the microwave, since it will likely separate.

2 cups whipping cream
1 8-ounce bottle clam juice
3 tablespoons prepared white horseradish

2 tablespoons olive oil
4 skin-on salmon filets

Boil cream and clam juice in heavy large saucepan until reduced to 1 cup, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat. Whisk in horseradish and season sauce to taste with salt and pepper.

In a skillet over high heat, heat the olive oil. Season the salmon with salt and pepper. Add salmon to skillet, skin side up and cook until fish is browned – about 3 minutes. Turn the salmon over and cook until nicely browned and just opaque, about 3 more minutes.

Remove salmon from heat and drizzle with horseradish sauce to taste.

Enjoy!

Have a very happy Valentine’s Day!

Keeping the Troops at Bay

There are some classics that I would eat every day if I felt my body would not revolt up against me. One of those things is linguine in clam sauce. It’s a simple dish, and one that I ate obsessively as a child in Italian joints across Brooklyn. It’s the type of thing I would love to eat at least two, three, no - four times a month, had I no fear that this sort of frequency would result with unrest within.

I can see it now: my stomach amassing a group of rebel organs that would march towards a victorious coup d’état in my body, their strident and hard-willed desire for change within my inner workings unfettered by the gallons of oil I have sent into my system in a futile effort to stymie their progress.

Because I have the utmost respect for my body, or at least am realistic in my understanding of its power over my day-to-day functions, I do not indulge in such a reckless manner. But – thank goodness, that doesn’t mean that I am to be without my linguine and clam sauce. Hell, that doesn’t even mean that I can’t add salami to my dish.

I’m a rebel, though a reasonable one, which some may very well argue is not a rebel at all. So be it. I’m going to eat my linguine and clam sauce, but I’m going to do it so as not to upset the potential troops within. I’m not going to deny myself these pleasures, but I see no problem with appeasing my body by making them a little bit healthier. My mind can also relax knowing that the chance of rebellion south of my neck has been dutifully minimized.

Linguine with Clams and Salami
From Melissa Rubel, Food & Wine, February 2008



This is an incredibly simple dish and it takes almost no time at all to put together. The chopping is minimal, and the most labor-intensive task is scrubbing the clams. The sauce is put together in less time than it takes the pasta to cook, so this is really a fabulous weeknight meal. Serve with some crusty bread to sop up the goodness of the sauce. We used a multigrain baguette from Red Hen; while a simple crusty french baguette might have been the more fitting choice, the multigrain did the trick, and kept my organs at bay.

I characteristically misplaced my Genoa before I started cooking and used a hard salami instead; this worked out pretty well, but I’m convinced not nearly as well as the Genoa would have, since its texture was a bit too substantial for the rest of the dish, which seemed almost delicate in comparison.

12 ounces linguine (spaghetti, thin fettuccine; really any long pasta with substantial bite will work, but linguine is traditional)
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3 medium-sized garlic cloves or 2 large, thinly sliced
2 ½ dozen littleneck clams, cleaned and scrubbed
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup bottled clam broth
3 ounces sliced Genoa salami, cut into 1/2-inch strips
1/2 cup coarsely chopped flat-leaf parsley leaves

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the pasta and cook to al dente. Drain.

While the pasta is cooking in a large, deep skillet, heat the olive oil. Add the garlic and cook over moderate heat until lightly golden, about 3 minutes. Add the crushed red pepper, clams and wine and bring to a boil. Add the clam broth, cover and cook over moderate heat until the clams open, about 5 minutes. (Note: I used a larger stockpot, which worked just fine. If you are to do the same just be aware that the cooking time is going to increase; don’t get scared that the clams are no good, it took a good 5-8 minutes for all of my clams to open. If your pot is really large it might take up to ten for them all to open).

Add the linguine, salami and parsley to the clam sauce and toss over low heat until combined. Transfer the linguine to shallow bowls and serve immediately.

Serves 4

In Praise of Salt

I've never really been one for sweets. Savory was always more my bag. I don't know what it is about salt that just calls out to me. It could be because I'm Jewish, but I'm not going to start getting stereotypical here. I'm often singing the praises of sodium, and when I mentioned to my roommate, Emily, that I was thinking of writing an ode to salt for my next entry, she went ahead and wrote the following:

there once was a shaker of salt
i saw it and couldn't find fault
it made things delish
especially fish
i would not put it in a malt

I couldn't have said it better myself.



I first tasted the salty wonder of anchovies over the summer. They just get a really bad rap, much like Brussels sprouts, which I think, sadly is what took me so long to first give them a chance. I never fell for this with Brussels sprouts, but it was probably a combination of their reputation and my history with fish that kept me away. Their mere existence on a pizzeria menu is puzzling to every child; it's just beyond comprehension to a ten year old to put tiny fish fillets on an otherwise perfect piece of pizza. They're a true grown-up taste. I've grown to really, really like anchovies recently - they have a fantastic salty taste without being briny like clams and oysters. The can impart the perfect amount of salt to a dish without overpowering the rest of the ingredients with their fishiness.

I read a tragic tale not that long ago about a culinary jaunt gone horribly awry. A pot of boiling water was dropped on a foot, a painful burn the result. But the pasta Adam made just looked so good, and the ingredients were so simple and straightforward that I could almost taste it. I felt that his enjoyment was slightly (read: probably fully) compromised by the fact that he had been severely injured by the very pasta he was then supposed to enjoy. Adam himself recognized this bias. You wouldn't ask a woman who had been beaten to be on the very jury that was supposed to decide her attacker's guilt, nor would you want a food critic to review a restaurant whose chef he knew was having an affair with his wife. I think you know what I'm getting at here. So I figured I'd give it a go. The bottom line is that the simplicity of the ingredients in this dish seemed that they would impart the perfect amount of saltiness to balance with the heartiness of the pasta and the chickpeas.

Penne with Anchovies and Chickpeas (adapted from the Amateur Gourmet)



The recipe is incredibly easy, and I took Adam's suggestion to add garlic to the sauce. I just took twelve anchovies, mashed them with some salt and two medium-sized cloves of garlic with a fork. Then I added two small stalks of diced celery and the liquid from the can of chickpeas and the sauce was done. It was easy enough. Once the penne was done cooking, I drained it and put it back in the pot with the sauce, the chickpeas, a decent amount of coarsely ground pepper and some parmigianno regianno cheese. The sauce was a bit too liquidy for my taste though, so I turned the heat back on low and let the sauce cook down and thicken up, stirring pretty often. By the time the sauce was to my liking, the anchovies had disintegrated, as anchovies are wont to do, so I finely chopped another one and sprinkled it with some more grated parmigianno on top of the pasta once it was in my bowl.

When all was said and done, I really enjoyed the dish. Cooking the sauce with the pasta was definitely necessary, since it allowed the sauce to adhere to the pasta. If I hadn't done that, the sauce would have all sat idly at the bottom of the bowl - this way it gave flavor to the pasta. I'm not really sure the celery was necessary, but it didn't offend my palate in any way. The anchovies made their presence known with their salty pop, even though they were no longer visible in the sauce. The chickpeas gave the meal substance and are what ultimately made the small bowl I made for myself incredibly filling. The pasta was hearty without being complex. I would make this again in a heartbeat; it's healthy, fast and incredibly cheap to make. It's also delicious, which doesn't really hurt its case. The ingredients are so straightforward and the dish is seasoned with only salt and pepper, so you know exactly what you're getting. And if you're in the mood for something salty, this should hit the spot.

Something from Slightly More than Nothing

This is the second appearance that salmon is making in my posts. I apologize for the lack of diversity, but that's just pretty much all I've been eating lately. It's just that it's pretty novel to me. I am going to tell you this with the full understanding that I may lose your readership because I am insane. But believe me, I could not make this up.

I used to be allergic to all fish. Well, except canned tuna, I guess that processing did something to the fish that enabled me to eat it without the risk of turning into a puffed-up, swollen mess with a rapidly closing throat. Sound miserable? Well, it was. I wasn't allergic to shellfish, so that was a bit of a consolation. As I grew out of other allergies I began to gain some hope that fish would enter my life without causing me pain. And eventually, it did. I was able to eat almost all fish. Except salmon. I'm not really sure why this one fish decided that it hated me. And like many other broken-hearted, I couldn't give up - I just loved it so. Watching the rest of my family eat bagels and lox on weekend morning was tortuous. I yearned for that which I could not have.

The severity of the reaction lessened as I got older, so every once in a while I would coax myself into dealing with the incessant itchiness guaranteed to follow and binge on some salmon. I somehow (don't ask me how, I'm not really sure) figured out that I had the least extreme reaction to the fish when I ate it cooked and cold. Raw didn't work, smoked didn't work, and for some reason when it was hot it still made me itch. I pitched this theory to my parents expecting them to call me crazy, but my mother confirmed that my grandmother indeed had the same exact allergy. So maybe I'm not crazy. Or maybe the rest of my family is just as insane as I am. No matter, I was reassured.

Towards the end of this summer, the summer of gluttony and seafood about which I will likely post in greater detail a little bit down the line, I decided that I had enough. I was going to will my body to eat salmon if it killed me. I just kept eating it in its many forms, which culminated in a veritable gravlox binge at Aquavit, and eventually, I was able to eat it with no reaction at all. Yes, I know, I likely just grew out of it like the other allergies, it just took me longer, but I like to think that I was responsible for tricking my body this time. And so I have been reveling in my newfound salmon normalcy - I have joined the salmon eating population. And I've been eating it with such frequency that I will likely develop a new allergy, but I'll worry about that when that happens. In any event, I'm going to tell you about a pasta dish I made last week, featuring, what else? Salmon.

While in undergrad in Montreal, my friends and I would frequent L'Academie on St. Dennis. Its name was misleading - despite popular belief, it wasn't a culinary school kitchen at all, just a huge three-story restaurant with a guaranteed line snaking out the door on weekends. It had very reliable food, often quite good, and always at a fair price. And it was BYOB, making it that much more attractive to a poor college kid. There was a salmon and mushroom pasta that was on the menu there, and like all other salmon dishes, it taunted me. My friends would order it and I would stare and long for it. It was something so commonplace, yet something forbidden. That is probably why the one of the first things I did when I absolved my salmon allergy was attempt to recreate that dish. I used many shortcuts, mostly because it was easy and I had it all in my kitchen, and that's the secret. One of my roommates in college would make something like this sauce, she would regularly throw the contents of a couple of cans into a pan and eat it happily. I used a couple more ingredients that she used to, but It's a great last-minute, something-from-nothing dish made with things that are already lying around the house.

Pasta with Salmon and Mushrooms



Sorry for the sub-par photo, the light was not cooperating with me that night. There's no real recipe here, just a bunch of stuff I threw together, but I will attempt to capture it as accurately as possible.

I set some thin spaghetti in a pot of boiling water. While it was cooking I started to saute about 8 ounces of white mushrooms, which I purchased cleaned and sliced, in a pat of butter. Once the mushrooms were well on their way and rather soft, I added some garlic and a liberal sprinkling of dried thyme to the pan. I then emptied the cream of mushroom soup into the pan and added about a half of the empty can worth of water and allowed that to start heating. I would have added white wine instead of the water, but I didn't have any on hand.

Once this started looking saucy (ha) I added probably about half a cup of parmegianno cheese into the sauce to thicken it and give it a good saltiness, since I had used reduced sodium soup. With the parmegianno went another tablespoon of butter for richness. I opened up a can of Bumble Bee salmon (cooking salmon is obviously a good option, but it didn't fit into the theme of a quick-fix dinner too well, and the canned stuff actually tasted pretty good and didn't leave the apartment smelling like fish) and flaked it into the sauce. Once that was heated I adjusted the seasoning and added quite a bit of pepper and some more cheese. I mixed it up with the cooked pasta and it was a lovely dinner for two. And all I had to do was throw some stuff in the pan.

Outside of the grating of the cheese, there was really no effort required. I'll never know how close I came to the dish at L'Academie, and one of these days I'll go all out and cook the salmon and make my own sauce from scratch, but until that day, this will do.