Mac N Chz

Unfortunately, i haven't taken a picture of the mac and cheeze that i will be referring to, maybe i will later....

On the PPK (Post Punk Kitchen) someone started a thread about VegNews' Mac N Chz recipe. I'm not sure when it was printed but here's the link: http://www.vegnews.com/pdf/veganize_it.pdf....I was intrigued since it had cashews in it and cashews seem to do magical things when used to veganize recipes, like my sister's cashew "whip cream." And this recipe contained no nooch (aka nutritional yeast, for those who don't know veg slang), which i'm not against but i wanted to see how "cheesy" it would be since nooch is used for that reason.

I made it for the first time a few weeks ago at Joanna's (of yellowroserecipes.com) BeRightBack brunch(and no one took pictures of the food there, which is weird since all the vegans i hang out with are always taking food porn whenever they eat). The recipes called for potatoes and i didn't have any, so i added some zucchini, which i knew would kinda change the recipe since it's not at all the same consistency and more watery. It's a very easy recipe, the only annoying part is how many dishes you end up dirtying. Everyone at the brunch seemed to enjoy it, especially Maeve (http://strawberryrock.wordpress.com/) and Big Rubes (the 3 1/2 year old daughter of Josh and Michelle, owners of Herbivore). It has a bit of kick to it from some cayenne. Maeve had about 3 servings of it and requested that i make this for our Gossip Girl night the next day, so i took that as a compliment. It was good though, and i had added some chopped up chard before baking it for some extra nutrition and color.

I made this again on Saturday evening. I used potatoes this time and definitely noticed a difference when i was stirring the sauce with the pasta. Like it had a stretchiness factor. It was kind of weird actually. I used a little more cayenne and I also sauteed up some mushrooms and, again, added chard. The first time i didn't use all the bread crumbs but this time decided to go for it. I think it made it too dry, so i think next time i'll just use 3 slices of bread. Maybe add some peas and/or corn.....Yeah, you can do a lot to this to use up whatever veggies you got kickin' around in your fridge or freezer and it's just makes a great comfort food on these cool, crisp fall nights. It makes quite a bit so invite some friends over.....