Macaroni and Cheese: A Classic

When I was growing up, one of my favorite mom-cooked meals was her version of Mac and Cheese. I don’t think she made up the recipe herself but I would ask for it every birthday, Christmas and whenever I got to make the call on what we had for dinner. I didn’t grow up vegan, so this baby was loaded with cottage cheese, grated cheddar and who knows what else. It was baked with cooked elbow macaroni and I always ate every last bite.

Although I didn’t try and recreate the recipe very many times in adulthood, I’ve always remembered it fondly. After I had been vegan for a few months, I realized I hadn’t had mac and cheese in years, and was curious to see if I could find a vegan recipe that would really satisfy that craving for that cheesy comfort. I’d discovered The Post Punk Kitchen by this point, so I surfed on over and did a simple search and came up with the following recipe. It wasn’t posted on the site by its creator (Isa Chandra Moskowitz, who’s a vegan cooking goddess, in my humble opinion), but it’s amazing all the same. This is a very kid friendly recipe, because I don’t know many kids who would turn up their nose as some gooey mac and cheese.  This recipe tastes as good as the stuff in a box, better, without a lot of the nasty processed+ness. Onto the Mac, and you can find the original recipe here .

Macaroni and “Cheese”

Ingredients

• 1 box elbow macaroni
• 2 cloves garlic
• half a fairly large sized onion
• 1 cup nutritional yeast
• 1 cup soymilk
• 2 tbsp. margarine
• 4 tbsp. tomato sauce
• 1 tsp wet mustard
• 2 pinch chopped basil
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• olive oil

Directions
Throw the elbow macaroni into boiling water, following directions on the box. i like using quinoa noodles, for some extra health value. Dice the onion and garlic. Lightly cover the bottom of a small pot with oil and fry the diced onion and garlic at medium-low until onion is transparent. At this point, pour the nutritional yeast and soymilk into the pot. Add the rest of the ingredients, somewhat in the order listed above, while mixing the contents at low heat. Continue heating the sauce for a couple minutes, stirring every so often. The macaroni should be done, so strain it. Pour sauce over macaroni in a bowl. Enjoy!