Monday, August 27, 2012

Vegan Farro Alfredo

I was all set to just do a quick concoction with my farro and whatever I had in the fridge.  But, right before I left work, I saw a Facebook post by Made Just Right by Earth Balance for Vegan Fettuccine Alfredo that looked absolutely delicious.  I had a number of ingredients already in the fridge at home, so I decided to do a farro alfredo.

I followed the recipe fairly closely, with a few changes.  First, I cut the tofu a bit smaller than the recipe suggested, and broke it up with a spatula as I cooked it.  I used Nasoya's Extra Firm Tofu Plus, which is fortified with B6, B12, D and Calcium.  It never hurts to get extra of these vitamins!  There's only 8 grams of protein per serving, which surprised me, especially compared to last night's Gardein dish, which had 17 grams.

Anyhow, I don't think I drained the tofu as well as I should have, as it didn't brown as much as the picture did.  I did also elect to season it with white pepper and sea salt before adding the veggies, rather than wait to season at the end as the recipe suggested.

I also omitted the peas, as I am not a pea lover.  In retrospect, I could have upped the broccoli and the carrots to compensate, but it didn't occur to me at the time.  Since I had pre-cooked the farro last night, I added it into the veggies with a few minutes to go to warm it through.  Also, I used unsweetened almond milk instead of soy milk, since I had an open carton of almond milk in the house.  I also used Italian Seasoning rather than just basil, and I reseasoned the whole mix with sea salt and white pepper after adding the sauce into the veggie and farro mix.

I was definitely happy with this dish - it was creamy and flavorful, but perhaps a bit on the heavy side for a weeknight dinner.  Granted, it was a lot lighter than the non-vegan version of an Alfredo.  To lighten it up a bit, you can probably omit the tofu.  Also, the husband was even willing to try it and pronounced it good and repeatable.  I have some leftovers in the fridge, so we'll see how it reheats!

No comments:

Post a Comment