No time to post really until after August 19th, sadly. I wanted to get this one up, though as it is a particular favorite of mine. As demonstrated in a previous post, you can make a respectable cream sauce with “silken” tofu. This sauce is kinda like Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup, only not bursting with saturated fat-filled condensed cream.
Let’s call it:
Fettuccine and Green Beans with Mushroom Creme
- soft Mori-Nu tofu – usually on the shelf in the natural foods section, not refrigerated
- mushrooms of choice, sliced
- low sodium vegetable bouillon or soup base – serving appropriate for 1 cup broth
- 5 oz. whole-wheat fettuccine
- 1 lb green beans
- nutritional yeast (optional) – Ellwoods has it in the bulk bin
- black pepper to taste
- You can kind of see in the picture what the tofu package looks like – it’s vacuum packed or something, so it won’t be in the usual refrigerated section. It’s worth the search, however, for the silken-style tofu because it’s consistency is far better for sauces. For the pasta I used Trader Joe’s sprouted whole wheat fettucine.
- First, lightly spray a pan with cooking spray and saute mushrooms with the merest dash of salt until they start to release their moisture and get nice and browned. Remove from heat.
- In a food processor or blender, combine the package tofu, 1 cup of the mushrooms, bouillon or vegetable base, and nutritional yeast. Return to mushroom pan, add black pepper to taste and simmer on low.
- Meanwhile, steam green beans and cook pasta.
- Combine all and serve. Maybe some fresh herbs would be nice if some are available – parsley or something.
The sauce should look something like this: creamy and smooth. Tastes fantastic. I love “cream” sauces, always have. If the prospect of using tofu for such a purpose is still daunting, try this recipe first for a vegetable-based creamless cream sauce.
Yummmm!
Oh the kids miss creamy dishes, I can’t wait to try it!!!
I love creamy pasta dishes too…these days I make vegan mac & “cheese” pretty often by adding some garlic powder, onion powder, and turmeric (for color) to one of my standard cream sauce recipes and serve on brown rice pasta shells with broccoli. A healthy indulgence, and probably kid-friendly!
Wow this looks really good. Reminds me a bit of the ‘holiday green bean casserole.’ I usually use cashew or almonds for my cream sauces. I’ll have to give this a try. When I do I’ll write a post about it on my blog ‘ Meatlessly Mouthwatering at blogspot.com ‘and send a cross-link to you 🙂