Vegan Alfredo Sauce

On April 26, I posted about the constant uncertainty about whether one has COVID, and the desire not to get sick before far-flung family was to visit. Eight days later, my young backup dancer had a sore throat. She tested negative the next morning (of course), but she tested positive the morning after that (of course). My other backup dancer and I fell like dominoes, and complicated family plans long in the making were thrown into disarray.

Ugh.

We adjusted as needed, and everything turned out okay, if not quite according to the original plan. Two weeks later, I still feel ever so slightly winded all the time. I remind myself that is not surprising, given that I had a disease that has killed a million Americans. I have every reason to think my backup dancers and I are all going to be fine, thanks to vaccines and boosters. We are lucky. 

Now that I am looking ahead to a couple months without having to worry about getting COVID, it's a great time to double down on worrying about the environment!

Thus motivated, I read a Guardian article filled with terrific terminology like ruminants (bad for Earth) and microbial protein (good for Earth). The article included some useful nuggets about the environmental problems of meat-heavy diets from a researcher with a name so awesome that I could not have made it up: Dr. Florian Humpenöder. Dr. Florian Humpenöder actually made me want to try eating microbial protein, which apparently tastes better than it sounds.

Meanwhile, I have made and compared two vegan alfredo sauce recipes. "Easy Creamy Cauliflower Alfredo Sauce" (The Colorful Kitchen) has a fatal flaw: it has so much raw garlic that it was far too spicy. I love the idea of a cauliflower-based sauce, and it was wonderfully easy to make, but the garlic needs to be cooked. (UPDATE as of March 2024: Cook's Illustrated recommended microwaving garlic cloves for 2-3 minutes to reduce its bite).

NYT Cooking's "Vegan Fettuccine Alfredo", on the other hand, was so good that my young backup dancer actually begged to eat the leftovers for breakfast the next morning. The downside is that unlike Colorful Kitchen's recipe with its wholesome ingredients, NYT Cooking's recipe uses vegan cream cheese (I used Tofutti brand), which is made from all sorts of dubious-sounding things.

Perhaps I will attempt to combine the best elements of these two recipes at some point, creating the ultimate vegan alfredo super-sauce that could knock the socks off the likes of Dr. Florian Humpenöder.

Final note for you, apropos of nothing: a robin has made a precarious nest on a light fixture outside my house. Aren't the eggs beautiful?