Friday, June 24, 2011

the failure in presentation

So sometime last week culinary chaos ensued.
I had made the decision to try and make an Alfredo sauce from raw cashews.
The first step in this sauce is soaking them for hours, so as I was boiling water for coffee my buttery little cashews went in for their day long soak.
The plan was to put them on fettucini noodles, until over coffee the boyfriend informed me that we would be having company, gluten free company.

an aside: this is also when we hatched the plan for what ended up being the next post "a failure in execution"

I always get so nervous making something new for people I don't know, hell I get nervous making something for people I do know, but I had been dreaming of this sauce for days, so I decided to still go ahead. and in place of noodles I had a spaghetti squash that needed to get used. boyfriend was in charge of a side and I went off to work worry free.

I didn't expect to have to cook in front of anyone but here I was. My oven started smoking trying to make the squash, I was cursing and dropping things while the boyfriend was calmly throwing together a salad.
here is the result.
sick looking right? The sauce is laying over the squash like a dead squid. I had intentionally made it thicker since experience has taught me that squash has a lot of water, apparently, not this one though.
So we present this to our guest who said "is this dinner all vegetables?" (I am panicking) we all timidly and silently grab a forkful and take a bite.
 Suddenly it was exclamation about how good it was, and it was! it was actually really incredible. it tasted exactly like Alfredo, maybe even more savory? the squash wasn't even a weird flavor for it. it was...maybe my favorite dish I've made in a long time.  next time though I will toss the sauce with the squash instead of pouring it over. presentation is key.

Fake-fredo
in a blender
1 1/2 cup raw cashews (soaked for 4ish hours and drained)
2 cloves of garlic
2 teaspoons (or a healthy pinch if you are like me and don't measure) of onion powder, garlic powder, black pepper, rosemary and parsley
1 tablespoon of mustard
salt to taste
1/2 cup daiya cheese
almond milk

add just a little almond milk and start blending, you will need to add more of the milk until consistency is a little thinner than you want, it will take awhile to get those cashews smooth. pour mixture into a saucepan and heat on low until hot, it will get thicker pretty fast. then just pour over your favorite noodle. easy easy.

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