Quick Italian Garlic Veggie "Alfredo"

Happy happy MONDAY!

I am here in your inbox to debunk the idea that you have to sacrifice pasta in order to adhere to a healthy diet. Don’t get me wrong, I 100% love a heavy carbohydrate pasta every now and then because life is all about balance. But when it comes to my daily meals, I really try to consume food that is nutritionally dense. That is, I want to get allllll of the vitamins, minerals, fiber, and antioxidants that I can because it allows to me feel leaner, lighter, more regular (if you know what I mean), more energized, and more focused and satisfied throughout the day without a blood sugar crash after a typical pasta dish.

This pasta dish is packed with fiber, cancer-fighting antioxidants, is extremely flavorful, doesn’t take too much time to make, and can feed a family for dinner or yourself for a few days (I love me some pasta leftovers).

There are a ton of variations of pasta noodles at the grocery store that are simply made of beans or lentils that have no added ingredients and have the same texture and taste as pasta, especially when you put a sauce on it. And let me tell you… this sauce… is so. freaking. good.

For this dish I chose red lentil pasta. Lentils are packed with prebiotic fiber that encourage a healthy gut microbiome and produce short chain fatty acids, which help to arm our immune system, help fight inflammation in the vascular system, and decrease cholesterol levels. They are also famous for their “lentil effect”, which is the ability to blunt blood sugar spikes of food consumed hours later at a subsequent meal. While it’s best to consume whole lentils, lentil pasta is a much more nutrient dense choice than traditional refined pasta.

This dish is also packed with two famous cruciferous veggies: brussel sprouts and cauliflower. I chose these two crucifers because they provide different textures for the pasta dish. I know that I have probably expressed my love for cruciferous vegetables before in previous recipe blogs, but they are worth praising and this information is so worth repeating. Sulforaphane is a sulfur rich compound found almost exclusively in the crucifers, and have been proven to have anti-cancer properties, promote brain and eyesight health, reduce allergy formation, manage type 2 diabetes, and have recently been found to successfully help treat autism due to their detoxification effects. Talk about nutrient-dense.

A fun fact for you: if you cut cruciferous vegetables and let them sit for ~40 minutes, your cruciferous vegetables will have much more active sulforaphane and you’ll reap all of those cancer-fighting benefits. This is because raw vegetables contain the precursor for sulforaphane, not the sulforaphane itself. This precursor is activated to become sulforphane by chopping or chewing. If you don’t chop your veggies before you cook them, this precursor is destroyed in the cooking process and sulforaphane is never created. However, if you chop the veggies and activate the precursor, sulforaphane is formed and you get all the benefits through the cooking process. So basically, chop your crucifers before cooking or eat them raw.

I perfected the alfredo sauce, which contains a ton of healthy fats and no added oils, so it’s is a sauce that I feel good about eating. It’s husband approved and is SO freaking good. The texture is perfection.

I mean, let’s just be real: how freaking nice is it that you can literally fuel your cells for longevity and to fight disease, all while not sacrificing on flavor or time? So nice.

ENJOY! And let me know how you like it!

Time to make: 35 minutes

Serves: 4-6 people

Ingredients:

• 2 containers of pasta noodles

• 2 cups raw cashews

• 1 large head cauliflower

• 1 lb brussel sprouts

• 1 container cherry tomatoes

• 3 cups of no salt added vegetable broth

• 1/2 cup nutritional yeast

• 1 small, ripe avocado

• 3 tablespoons avocado oil

• 2 tablespoons and 1 teaspoon dried oregano

• 2 tablespoons and 1 teaspoon garlic powder

• 1 teaspoon Himalayan sea salt

• 2 teaspoons ground pepper

Of course, always choose organic if you can.

Recipe:

• Preheat oven to 350*F.

• Place 2 cups raw cashews into a large pot and cover with water, bring to a boil, then take the pot off of the burner and let it sit for 15 minutes.

• In the meantime, chop the cauliflower into small florets and cut the brussel sprouts into halves. Toss cauliflower in a bowl with 1 tablespoon of avocado oil, 1 teaspoon oregano, and 1 teaspoon garlic powder. Repeat this process with the brussel sprouts and cherry tomatoes. Lay them all out on a sheet pan and bake them in the oven for 25 minutes.

• After draining the water, place the soaked cashews in the blender, and then use that same pot to cook your pasta while you make the sauce.

• For the sauce, add in the 3 cups of vegetable broth, 1/2 cup of nutritional yeast, 2 tablespoons oregano, 2 tablespoons garlic powder, 1 teaspoon salt, 2 teaspoons black pepper and 1 large avocado into the blender and blend on high until extremely smooth.

• Drain your pasta, adding it back into your pot. Add the alfredo sauce and mix well. Top with your roasted veggies in your bowl and mix to serve. Fuel those cells, my love.

Sources:

• BULSIEWICZ WILL. Fiber Fueled: The Plant-Based Gut Health Program for Losing Weight, Restoring Your Health, and... Optimizing Your Microbiome. S.l.: AVERY PUB GROUP; 2022.

• Greger M, Stone G. How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease. London: Pan Books; 2018.

• Singh K, Connors SL, Macklin EA, et al. Sulforaphane treatment of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2014;111(43):15550-15555. doi:10.1073/pnas.1416940111