veganized baked mac ‘n cheese

Do you remember the first food you made all by yourself?

If your answer was a PB&J or a bowl of cereal, let’s take this a little bit deeper. Do you remember the first food you were allowed to use the stove to make?

I can remember being allowed to use the stove and cook at a fairly young age. It may be because I was a 9 year old trapped in a 90 year old woman’s body, but I found when I was younger I had many responsibilities that I would not give out to my fifth graders, that’s for sure. Once I was in junior high, I moved into making my entire family dinner when my mom had to work (something that I absolutely adored doing), but what got me there was my practice with the blue box.

Oh yes, I am talking about Kraft.

These days, I must admit, I’m a little too much of a food snob to eat Kraft Macaroni and Cheese – or any gluten free, vegan variety that comes from a box. I’ve had plans for quite some time to try and make my own, but finally buying nutritional yeast sold me on today’s dinner.

This recipe is actually very easy to make – I was surprised at how little effort it took!

Veganized Baked Mac ‘n Cheese

• 1 box/bag tinkyada brown rice elbow noodles
• 1 crown of broccoli, chopped
• 1 cup almond milk
• 2/3 cup nutritional yeast
• 1/2 cup hummus
• 1-2 tbsp. gluten free flour
• 3/4 cup gluten free bread crumbs
• 5 tbsp. earth balance, divided
• salt, pepper, and garlic to taste

The first thing you will want to do is bring water to a boil to cook your pasta in. Once the water is boiling, cook your pasta according to the directions on the package. I knowingly cooked mine al dente – since this is going to go into the oven, you will want it to be a tad undercooked.

While your pasta is cooking, start chopping your crown of broccoli. If you want this to go even quicker, just use frozen broccoli. Steam your broccoli until it is cooked – crisp, but not mushy. I zapped mine in the microwave for about 3 minutes.

By this time, your pasta should be finished cooking. Drain your pasta well and place it back into the pot in which the pasta was cooked. Combine your pasta and broccoli together.

To make your cheese sauce, you will need to combine your milk, hummus, nutritional yeast, about 3 tablespoons of Earth Balance, and salt/pepper/hummus in a small sauce pan. Turn your burner onto low heat and whisk until smooth. Bring to a low boil and add a tablespoon or two of flour to thicken up the sauce. You’ll want it to still be creamy, so if you find it is getting too thick, just thin it out with some water or almond milk.

Once your sauce has reached your desired consistency, pour the sauce over your pasta and broccoli. Transfer into a greased casserole dish (I used the equivalent to an 8×8’ish pan – however, this one is a little deeper than most 8×8’s!)

Spread your breadcrumbs over your macaroni and melt the remaining Earth Balance. Drizzle the melted Earth Balance over the bread crumbs.

Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Enjoy!

I am pretty sure I want to eat this every day for the rest of my life – I would be happy doing just that.

If you’re concerned that the above pictures doesn’t look like there’s that many breadcrumbs, it’s because there’s not. I adjusted the recipe so you would have an adequate amount of crumb topping if you were to make it exactly as listed.

If you would have told me at any point in my relationship with the husband that we would have to fight over who would get the last portion of a vegan macaroni and cheese, I would have laughed in your face and called you a liar.

But it happened. It totally happened.

After a very very long afternoon of cleaning my house from top to bottom, I am pooped. I just threw together a quick meal (sorry, not pictured) and am plopped down on the couch for the rest of the night. Question for everyone… This afternoon, I must have drank about 10-15 glasses of water (tall glasses! 16 oz.) in the course of 2 hours. I was soooo thirsty and I couldn’t manage to quench my thirst! Usually when I drink a ridiculous amount of water, I have to pee about every 5 minutes. Not today! What gives?

I am now trying to catch up on everyone’s lives as I have been kind of nonexistent in reading everyone’s blogs this weekend. Somehow life got a hold of me!

While I’m reading, I’ve been snacking on another sample from Nuts Online – Veggie Chips!

The fact that the container is almost gone by the time I took the picture should tell you exactly how i felt about this. Does anyone else see the kobacha hanging out in there? These were great – not greasy and a great crunchy  and salty snack! There’s a reason why I never buy veggie chips – I will eat an entire bag in one sitting. However, if someone gave me little snack sized containers of them, I’d be good to go!

Tomorrow’s Monday already? Where did this weekend go?

Question: What WAS the first food you made all by yourself?

Tagged as: baked mac 'n cheese, nuts online, product review, sample size, unquenchable thirst, vegan, veggie chips