VEGAN-IZED PENNE w/ ASPARAGUS AND PEAS (w/ a dash of Cook the Book Alfredo sauce pg. 142 )

While it is fun to follow recipes and learn new tricks, we most often get inspiration from trying to create what we feel like eating at that moment, using what is in the cupboard and refrigerator (or growing in the backyard). We just usually don’t transcribe or photograph the results. Well starting from the idea of trying to “vegan-ize” one of our all–time favorite pasta recipes from Food and Wine magazine from a few years ago. The recipe is Penne with Asparagus and Peas and it uses chicken stock (easy to sub out), heavy cream, butter and parmesan cheese.

So the thought was to retain the asparagus and peas of course, pump up the flavor with a very flavorful, homemade veggie stock (w/corn cobs from the freezer), a splash of soy milk, a bunch of basil (needing to be used up in the vegetable bin) and . . . hmm, vegan alfredo perhaps. . . Well, there happens to be a version in Vegan With a Vengeance, using Nutritional Yeast and nuts to get that parmesan cheese richness. Worth a try, and in the end had everything we needed, except the asparagus, on hand.

So started by making VWAV Alfredo Sauce (pg.142):

2t olive oil, saute 1 med.onion, chopped in big chunks ‘til soft, add 4 chopped garlic cloves and saute another 2 minutes or so then add all to the food processor with:

½ c. water, 2t yellow mustard, ½ c. walnuts, 2t soy sauce, 2t chile powder, 1c. nutrional yeast, s+p

Blend until smooth, thinning with more water as needed.

The alfredo sauce comes out a dubious shade of brown (due to soy, nuts and mustard) but tasted flavorful and funky, not totally unlike parmesan cheese (hello, nutritional yeast). Seemed a bit thick to be used as a sauce on its own but looked perfect for our idea of combining it with our veggie broth, asparagus and peas for a sauce.

Also got a vegetable stock going using:

A bunch of corn cobs (scraping a bit to get the corn milk flowing)

Celery

Carrots

Parsley

A dash of powdered veggie broth mix

A few peppercorns

Covered everything with water, brought it to a boil, then simmered 30-45 minutes until it had a pronounced bright veggie flavor from the celery and parsley with definite underlying sweetness of the corn. We kept it warm, waiting to use it in the pasta recipe (and there was about a quart leftover after that too).

So for the pasta sauce:

On med.low heat got about 1lb asparagus (cut into 1” pieces) sautéing with some olive oil. After a few minutes, added a few cloves of chopped garlic. When you can smell the garlic, add about two cups of veggie broth, heat to high and reduce by about ½ .

When reduced by ½ add half a bag of frozen petite peas, around ¼ c. soy milk and reduce some more. Then swirl in about ¼ cup of the Alfredo sauce. The sauce was a bit thin and we wanted it to coat the pasta so we cheated with a bit of cornstarch slurry to thicken it up.

To finish the pasta, add some cooked Penne (we used whole wheat) to the sauce, toss to coat, finish with a bunch of chopped basil and some salt to taste. Damn good pasta, not quite an Alfredo, not quite true to the original Food and Wine recipe, but a real keeper and nice reminder that most of our best meals come from making things up as we go along. And we even wrote this one down so perhaps we can recreate it.