Raw Vegan Alfredo Sauce, Vegan Ranch Dressing

The other night we had cheese tortellini with a vegan Alfredo sauce.  I realize it's an odd combination, but I am learning how to make the sauce while using up the groceries on hand.

The recipe is here.

Here is my version.  One of our kids is allergic to cashews so we had to adjust:

Raw Vegan Alfredo Sauce with Macadamia and Pine Nuts

Ingredients:

1/2 cup soaked macadamia nuts

1/2 cup soaked pine nuts

1 tsp lemon juice

1 tsp white low salt miso

1tbsp minced garlic

2tbsp dried minced onion

1 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp nutritional yeast

2 tbs dried basil

Drain the nuts and process them in a blender with about 1/12 cups of water until smooth.  Add the rest of the ingredients and continue to process until well blended.  Refrigerate for a couple of hours to allow the flavors to mingle.

Last night I made a vegan ranch dressing.  It wasn't raw because tofu isn't raw.  However, the tofu gave us a relief from all the nuts.  Until we are able to get up to speed on sprouting and dehydrating, our raw diet mostly consists of raw vegetables, raw fruit, and nuts - sometimes nuts with every meal - which is not good.

Comment:  Since I originally wrote this post, we have learned that we don't need to eat nuts and seeds with every meal to get enough protein.   With time we have adjusted our diet so that a large potion of our proteins come from leafy greens like kale, spinach, collards and chard.  We do this by drinking a lot of green juice and green smoothies, and by eating a lot of large salads.  We still eat nuts and seeds, but not more than about a handful a day each.

Vegan Ranch Dressing

Recipe here

My version, which was changed based on what we had on hand.  It needed more seasoning than the original recipe called for, hence the long list of spices.  We just kept going until we liked how it tasted:

19 ounces firm tofu, drained slightly
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
1/3 cup lemon juice
 3 tbsp dried celery
2 tbsp dried minced chives
1 tbsp dried cilantro
1 tsp cardamom
1 tsp tumeric
1 tsp white miso low salt
1 1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tbsp onion powder
1/2 tsp fine black pepper
1/2 tsp white pepper
1/2 tsp cayenne
2 Tbsp maple syrup - grade A
 1 tsp celery salt
1 tsp spike salt
3 tbs olive oil

Blend ingredients until smooth and refrigerate a couple of hours to allow the flavors to mingle.  We added the chives toward the end so that there would be larger pieces in the mixture.  Next time I'd like to replace some of the maple syrup with stevia.