Penne with Enlightened Shrimp Alfredo (sort of)

     This is a great way to make alfredo that is moderately low-fat, potentially vegan, and quite tasty.  I adapted Nava Atlas' vegan recipe to suit my omnivorous tastes, but as I will present to you how I make it, I'll add the vegan alternatives in parentheses.

The shrimp I used for this was deveined, shelled and uncooked.  (If you use cooked shrimp, you can skip this next part obviously)  Remove the tails from the shrimp while boiling water for steaming the shrimp.  A three part pasta pot is excellent for steaming, but a small steamer basket will work as long as the water doesn't come up too high into it.  Once the water begins to boil, place the shrimp in the steamer and wait roughly 45 seconds.  I'm not even kidding.  It works that fast.  I put the shrimp in, took the pic above, put the lid on, put the camera down and looked back to find this...

Wow...

   I had intended on using the same pot for the pasta, but it was not big enough, so out came my turquoise retro cast-iron pot.  While the water for the pasta boils, saute 3 Tbls. butter (or margarine) along with 3 good sized cloves of garlic.

I chose to use a garlic press to save time and to really bring the flavor out of the garlic.  I do recommend taking the skins off the garlic before pressing them, though.  Makes it a lot easier to clean later.  Also, scrape the press with a knife to make sure you get all the garlicky goodness into the pan.  After about 2 or 3 minutes, remove this from the heat and pour into a blender along with a package of silken tofu, 2 tsp. of salt, and 1/2 cup of milk (soy or rice for vegan).  Pulse until smooth and creamy.

Looks tasty, eh?

    You can also add the Parmesan cheese before blending if you wish.  I chose to wait until the pasta was cooked and drained, mostly because I was forgetful and the recipe said to do it that way.  Once the sauce is a nice uniform consistency, add to the pasta along with the shrimp. 

    Unless you are serving this right away, I suggest putting the pasta back on the stove on med-low.  Add salt, pepper and other spices to your liking.  I ended up putting about 1 cup of parmesan into this before I was satisfied.

   So how did it taste?  Let's put it this way...

Even Audrey loved it.  

   If my finicky five year old likes it, you're hard pressed to find someone who will turn it down.  We usually stock up on chik'n nuggets and Boca Burgers as a contingency for her discriminating taste buds.  But she loves tofu for some reason.  Always has.  She'd bathe in the stuff if it was socially acceptable.

The rest of the fam was also pleased...

 

Don't be fooled by the iffy look on Amelie's face.  She loves this stuff.

  Healthy, almost vegan, and the tofu based sauce is a heck of a lot easier to make than traditional Alfredo with heavy cream. It also reheats better since there's no cream to separate from the cheese.

I will be starting a recurring theme of doing family fave Fridays on here, so look forward to that.  I'll kick it off tomorrow with another favorite tofu recipe my wife adapted from yet another Nava Atlas recipe.

Here it is, your moment of Zen.