Vegan MoFo! Day Four: Coconut Kale Alfredo Sauce

So let's be honest here... there's nothing quite like a good helping of pasta. And as vegans, we typically get pretty lucky when it comes to pasta dishes.

When you get stuck at a non veg-friendly Italian joint with omnivorous friends or family members it's pretty much guaranteed that you are going to end up munching on bread and a bowl of pasta with some sort of red sauce and veggies. (Hopefully veggies!)

It's wonderful that most marinara sauces, whether they be jarred, restaurant, or homemade are typically vegan. But, not to knock red sauce here, it would be nice from time to time to have a little variety. Like alfredo sauce for instance.

When's the last time you had a nice creamy garlic -egg and diary free- alfredo sauce to go with that pasta from the farmer's market you like so much? We know, it had been ages for us too! So we had to do something about it!

Now, we have posted about this recipe before. It's a little creation we came up with in the early days of the Two Vegan Ladies blog and we have since perfected!  You can read the original post here but we'll admit it has a few extra steps than are necessary.

This has really become one of our most requested dishes and after making it several dozen times at various potlucks and social gatherings we have changed our method a bit. What used to take almost an hour and a half to make can now be whipped up in 20 minutes!

So let's get started on this revamped recipe- shall we?

*Note: This is A LOT of sauce. If you are making this for a small family dinner you may want to cut recipe in half.

You will need:
4 tablespoons of Earth Balance (we like soy-free)
4-6 chopped cloves of garlic or 2 tablespoons minced garlic
2 chopped shallots
1 bunch of kale
2 cups of sliced mushrooms
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil (leave some finely chopped pieces for garnish as well!)
3 cans of coconut milk
3 heaping tablespoons nutritional yeast
salt
pepper
garlic powder
1 teaspoon raw sugar
1 teaspoon dried oregano (optional)
4 tablespoons sundried tomato paste (totally optional)
4 tablespoons corn starch
and 1 mighty whisk

What to do:
First, get out a large pot. We used to make this in a sauce pan but have found it easier to mix everything together in something with higher sides.

Put on medium heat, add 2 tablespoons of Earth Balance, and in this order, add: garlic, shallots, kale, and mushrooms. Let cook, stirring well, for a few minutes.

Next shake coconut milk cans and add to pot. Stir well and add chopped basil along with 2 more tablespoons of Earth Balance. Let cook for a few minutes.

Add 3 heaping tablespoons of nutritional yeast along with a few pinches of salt, pepper, garlic powder, sugar, and oregano (if desired) and continue to cook for a few more minutes.

Now, you may have noticed the picture above has a more redish-orange tint to it than our usual off-white alfredo sauce creation. This is because we decided to go for a sun dried tomato flavor in our alfredo sauce this time around.

If you would like to alter the flavor to some sun dried tomato goodness it's easy enough. You can certainly use actual sun dried tomatoes, or go the lazy way like we did. Most grocery stores carry a sun dried tomato paste or spread like this one. Just pop open the jar and stir about 4 tablespoons of the spread into your sauce pot.

This stuff is also great on sandwiches with hummus and fresh veggies!

So now remove your sauce from the heat and get ready, because it is time for... THE MIGHTY WHISK....

Grab your corn starch and your mighty whisk of choice because we're about to turn this concoction into a thick and creamy sauce.

Add the corn starch 1 tablespoon at a time into the pot and whisk, whisk, whisk those clumps away! You may need more than 4 tablespoons, you may need less... just keep whisking till you feel like it's working.

Also, keep in mind that the sauce will thicken as it cools so take it easy there vegan tiger as you add tablespoon after tablespoon of starchiness. You don't want to end up with a solid block of alfredo sauce.

You can use this sauce as a dip with bread or, of course, put in on top of your favorite noodles. In version 1.0 of this recipe we layered the sauce with our noodles and mixed it together. This seems to be the preferred method for potluck style dining because the sauce and kale are more evenly spread amongst the noodles. 

For social gatherings this is probably enough sauce to cover 2-3 boxes of pasta- depending on how saucy your guests like to be. ;-)

Top with freshly chopped basil and enjoy!

This has certainly become one of our signature dishes and we would love to see everyone's results and variations. If you would like, please post a picture on our facebook page here when you prepare it.

With peace, love, and compassion,

The Two Vegan Ladies

Creamy Avocado Collard Green Wraps

Yesterday at the produce stand we came across some amazing looking collard greens and just had to pick some up.

The leaves were so big we knew we could really do something great with them. So we ran home and just let this recipe create itself.

The result was pretty amazing. Packed with nutrients and delicious! This combination of flavors really works!

It was hard to come up with a name for them because there are so many different elements. A friend who shared dinner with us last night suggested "Medley Wraps" because really that's what they are. A medley of vegetable and tastes. But for the sake of quick explanation we went with "Creamy Avocado Collard Green Wraps" for the blog title. :-) But you can call them Medley Wraps if you want, that's totally okay with us!

You will need:
Collard Greens (a bunch with the largest leaves you can find)
1/2 small head of green cabbage
1-2 large carrots
2 yellow onions
1-2 green onions
1/2 block tofu
1 medium avocado
1/4 can coconut milk
4 cloves of garlic
1 TBS soy sauce
salt
pepper
paprika
garlic powder
turmeric


To prepare:

1. Separate the collard green leaves and cut off the long stems. Wash the greens throughly then fill a large pot with water and let it come to a boil. Once pot is boiling, turn off heat, set pot to side and place leaves into water. Cover and let sit.

2. Cut your block of firm tofu in half and then into small cubes. Boil a small pot of water, remove from heat, add tofu, and let sit for a few minutes while you prepare your veggies.

3. Wash other vegetables. Chop cabbage into slices and make carrots into thin sticks. We left our onions pretty long as well and just chopped our green onions all the way down the stem (you want the green and the white parts).

4. Once all veggies are chopped, heat a wok or skillet to medium heat and add a little olive oil or non-stick spray. Throw in veggies and lightly sauté with a tablespoon of soy sauce and a dash of salt, pepper, and garlic powder. (Try not to overcook. They'll continue to cook in the oven and you don't want them to get too soft.) 

5. Drain tofu and add to vegetables in wok/skillet. Give veggies/tofu a small toss to mix.

6. Carefully remove green leaves from pot and set on dry surface. You may want to pat dry with a paper towel. 

7. Add a few large spoonfuls of sauteed veggies on top of leaves and then wrap by folding up from the stem, followed by folding in the sides to create a seal, then rolling up till end is reached. 

8. After all the wraps are sealed, preheat oven to 350ºF and coat a baking dish with non-stick cooking spray, then place wraps inside.

9. Chop four cloves of garlic and in a small dish mix with a small amount of olive oil, salt, pepper, and turmeric then place on top of wraps and stick in oven for 25 minutes.

10. While wraps are cooking prepare topping. In a food processor combine 1 medium avocado with 1/4 can coconut milk and a few pinches of salt, pepper, garlic powder, and paprika. Blend until smooth and creamy.

11. After 25 minutes, take out wraps and set on plate. We served ours on a bed of balsamic sauteed chickpeas (sauté chick peas in spices and balsamic vinegar until soft). Set the roasted garlic to the side, top wraps with a thick strip of avocado mixture and then garnish with roasted garlic and paprika.

Once cut into the filling will look something like this and will taste delicious! 

Enjoy! 

(And don't worry our honeymoon review of The Florida Keys is coming soon!)

With peace, love, and compassion-

The Two Vegan Ladies

Holy Guacamole! Mexican Alfredo Pasta!

So what do you do when you have a veggie basket full of avocados left over from Cinco de Mayo? Well first you pick out the survivors and then you make Mexican alfredo pasta!


Guacamole is delicious but sometimes you want that wonderful avocado flavor with a new twist.


This creamy dish is a good source of fiber, potassium, Vitamin E, B-vitamins and folic acid.

 What you'll need:

1 medium-large avocado

1/2 can coconut milk

1/2 package tofu

Juice from 3 limes

1/4 cup fresh cilantro

1/4 cup fresh basil

1/4 cup chopped green onions

1 can black beans

2 cloves of garlic

1 small red onion

1 small vadalia (or yellow) onion

Salt

Pepper

Garlic Powder

1 package noodles (we like the Garden Delight variety) 

Fresh salsa for topping

First, cut your avocado and remove the seed. 


If you're feeling ambitious poke some toothpicks into the seed and set it in a jar of water so it can sprout. Once sprouted, move it to a pot of soil and then eventually to the ground so it can grow into a beautiful avocado tree! We have three growing at our house right now!  


*It should also be noted that sometimes these seeds take a while. Some of ours have taken their sweet time of almost two months! Just fill the water as it evaporates and change it out if it gets icky. They will eventually root and sprout little green friends! Promise! Sometimes removing the outer dark colored shell helps expedite this process. 




Next, combine avocado, coconut milk, tofu, lime juice, cilantro, basil, and green onions into a food processor or blender with 1/2 tsp salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Blend until smooth and creamy.

Now, in a skillet sauté garlic with red and yellow onions and black beans. Season to taste.

Boil your noodles then combine avocado sauce with beans/onions and noodles. Mix well or layer.

Add fresh salsa or chopped green onions for garnish.

This creamy and delicious pasta dish will easily serve 4 people.

Gotta love avocados! 

With peace, love, and compassion-

The Two Vegan Ladies

Vegan Garlic Mushroom Alfredo Recipe

When we were vegetarian we often talked about going vegan. We knew it would eventually happen but we prolonged it because we didn't want to let go of certain foods. We both assumed that with committing to an entirely plant based diet came the fact that there were food items and certain meals we were committing to never eating again. What we have found however, since going vegan six months ago, is that those fluffy textures and savory flavors we thought we were going to miss out on- cheese, cream, egg- are all available to us in different non-animal derived forms. We just needed to figure out how to put them together.

Last night we had a little thrift store expedition with a few friends followed by a small dinner party. Don't get the wrong idea here. This was nothing too fancy. We didn't break out the fine dishes and dress in ball gowns. In reality, our dining room table remains covered in craft supplies, as usual, and we sat in the living room with our food watching reruns of Rupauls' Drag Race together. Yeah, we're that kind of glamorous. Looking back we probably should have worn ball gowns.


We've made this meal before for just ourselves and made a lighter version with slightly different ingredients, but tonight since we were making it for 5 people we changed it up a bit and made a full flavor version. Let me tell you we got some great reviews! This is the sort of meal you serve your non-veg friends so you can see their carnivorous eyes light up and watch them speak the words "THIS is VEGAN?"

 So without further ado we present to you another original recipe.

 The Two Vegan Ladies:

Vegan Garlic Mushroom Alfredo

Time to cook: 30 minutes
Difficulty: Moderate (it only looks hard, we promise)

Calories Per Serving: About 200 (excluding noodles) less than 100 if you're doing the lite version

Serves: 6-8

You will need:

4 tablespoons Earth Balace (we use soy-free, it seems to have the most natural "butteryish" flavor)

6 cloves of fresh garlic

3/4 cup of fresh basil

2 shallots

1 large package of white or baby bella mushrooms
1 cup fresh kale (optional)

2 cans of coconut milk (lite coconut milk if you're going for the lite version of this recipe- you may want to up your corn starch and nutritional yeast if you are using the lite coconut milk or else your sauce will come out on the thin side. *Note: If you sampled this dish at the potluck we made the full-flavor version with the regular coconut milk.)

1/2 cup nutritional yeast 

2 tablespoons corn starch

1 tablespoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

1 1/2 packages of noodles (we went with Barilla Penne noodles for this meal)

The way to make this sauce come out thick and smooth is to add everything together slowly and give the flavors time to meld. It will be a process but it will be worth it!

1. Heat a large sauce pan/skillet to medium heat. 

2. Add 2 tablespoons of Earth Balance to pan.

3. Chop all your garlic and shallots then add to pan. 

4. Chop half of your basil into medium pieces and add to pan.

5. Stir everything and let simmer for 2 minutes.

6. Then chop all mushrooms and add to pan.

7. If you are adding in kale (not shown in pictures but highly suggested for flavor!) chop and add in now. You want them to be bite sized when they cook.

8. When the mushrooms and kale are coated in the Earth Balance, shake the coconut milk cans. Especially on the full flavor coconut milk it can get very thick and chunky. It may even need to be stirred once opened. Add both cans into the pan. This is going to seem very runny. Let it simmer for a few minutes.

9. Now add the another 1/4 of chopped basil along with your nutritional yeast, salt, pepper and garlic powder. You can go a little liberal with the spices here. I like mine a little more peppery so I probably end up adding a lot more. Just do it to you personal taste.

10. Add the remainder of your Earth Balance and let melt in while stirring. 

11. Time to start thickening your sauce! Grab a whisk and add in the corn starch. (Add more if you're using the lite coconut milk and you feel like it needs to be thicker.) With this ingredient you really need to make sure to mix it well or you could end up with little chunks of raw corn starch in the final product... and no one wants that.

12. You should have half of your basil left now. Add 1/4 of it in and leave the rest chopped to the side.

*Super secret ingredient tip: taste your sauce. If at this point you feel that the mix needs a little something to even out the zip of the garlic add a pinch or two of raw cane sugar. That will do it!

At this point your alfredo sauce should look something like this:

Yeah, it's sort of a gray. Don't worry that's natural coloring from the mushrooms. (Note: If you added in the kale it will a lot more green and leafy!)

13. Turn heat down to low and let simmer while you boil the water for your noodles. Keep stirring the sauce every so often for a few minutes then remove from heat. It's ready to use!

14. Once cooked, drain your noodles then set to the side. 

15. In a large bowl layer your sauce and noodles so that every bit is well coated. 

16. Mix pasta and sauce well then garnish with your remaining fresh chopped basil.

As Rupaul would say:


"It's an eleganza extravaganza!"


But really it's more of a basil alfredo garlic and mushroom (and kale!) extravaganza.






Serve with a big scoopy spoon or tongs and don't be surprised when your friends go for seconds.

With love, peace, and compassion-

The Two Vegan Ladies