Whole-Wheat Spaghetti and Cauliflower topped with a Rich White Sauce and Truffle Shavings

Dinner tonight is clearly not a healthy meal. But then again I don’t always have fresh truffle in the refrigerator either. So for tonight health went out the window.

In order to make this meal a little more nutritious than it could have been by using whole wheat pasta and adding lightly steamed cauliflower to the dish.

I made a rich white sauce by using raw cashews and oat flour. This is probably my new favorite vegan white sauce. It is thick and rich and has a mouth feel and flavor that is reminiscent to dairy white sauce made with roux and full fat milk.

Here is the dish I made for dinner tonight.

Whole-Wheat Spaghetti and Cauliflower topped with a Rich White Sauce and Truffle Shavings
Serves 4

Ingredients:

½ cup dry oatmeal
½ cup raw cashews, soaked at least an hour and drained
1 cup water
1 clove garlic, peeled
½ tablespoon nutritional yeast
1 pinch salt, to taste
1 pinch freshly ground black pepper, to taste
8 cups cauliflower florets
1 pound whole-wheat pasta
6 ½ quarts salted water
1 ounce fresh truffle

Directions:

Start the water boiling for the pasta.

Place the oatmeal in your blender and puree until it has turned into flour. Add the cashews, water, garlic and nutritional yeast to the blender and process until smooth.

Cook the sauce over a very low heat, stirring often, while the pasta and cauliflower cook.

If you have a pasta pot with a steamer insert you can cook your pasta and steam the cauliflower at the same time. That is what I did. Otherwise use two pots so the cauliflower and pasta are hot at the same time.

Place the pasta on the bottom of the plate, top with cauliflower, white sauce and shave some fresh truffle on top.

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 610.35
Calories From Fat (13%) - 78.07

Total Fat - 9.11g
Saturated Fat - 1.01g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 136.67mg
Potassium - 757.84mg
Total Carbohydrates - 115.22g
Fiber - 20.35g
Sugar - 10.11g
Protein - 23.35g

Comments:

The aroma of the fresh truffles wafting off the hot pasta dish was almost more than my nose could take. I adore the aroma of fresh truffles. As weird as this is I have been taking the truffles out of the refrigerator and opening the container and just smelling them for the last few days. I don’t think there is a better aroma in the world. Needless to say any day when I am using my truffle shaver is a good one at my house.

As you may have guessed I really enjoyed our dinner tonight. This is probably the healthiest meal I have ever made with truffle and it was better than I expected. Part of me considered making ravioli today but decided to make something healthier and I am glad I did. Now I know that the cauliflower and white sauce works really well.

The white sauce is really good when you need a rich sauce. This is probably my favorite version of white sauce. Nutritional yeast adds a little flavor in the background it is not a primary note. It almost adds a butter-like quality to the sauce.

Unrelated Note:

We did have a big bowl of fresh fruit with dinner followed by a green drink. So even though this meal was fairly indulgent overall we have plenty of nutrition.

I hope you all have a great evening.