(Vegan) Mac & "Cheese"

- by The Health Nut

So this is a vegan recipe that I altered & modified (and ended up making it non-vegan) until it was to my liking. It's for mac and cheese but I recommend not calling it that because it creates unrealistic expectations. If you make it thinking it will taste like cheese, you will be very disappointed (not that it tastes bad). It's actually really good and a much healthier alternative to real mac and cheese.

The first time I made this recipe, I followed this recipe with slight modifications:

http://ohsheglows.com/2010/11/23/vegan-mac-n-cheese/

I only used half the cashews and lemon juice as in the recipe, replaced the mustard with turmeric (just because I didn't have any mustard on hand), increased the nutritional yeast to 3 tablespoons, used regular skim milk and cut down on the salt, obviously.

I was really happy with the end result- it was creamy and had veggies blended in! As you can see from the picture, I didn't bake it with breadcrumbs- which would've only added to the deliciousness.

I made this another time using a different recipe by the same person: http://ohsheglows.com/2011/03/10/butternut-squash-mac-n-cheeze-two-ways/

This time I used butternut squash, which changed the flavor a little bit. I added in carrots and onions to this recipe and once again eliminated the mustard. It was my first time cooking with

butternut squash and while I loved it as a vegetable, I didn't like it in the recipe. It

ended up being too sweet for the recipe, which led to me mixing in a little bit of real cheese with the sauce. Instead of baking it with breadcrumbs, I topped with cheese but once again, I think it would taste better with breadcrumbs (I don't know why I keep skipping that step- maybe just not enough patience).

Another thing I didn't like about the recipe was how garlic-y it was. I love garlic and am usually not bothered by an overload of garlic in anything but I think it was too much raw garlic in both tries. Next time, I will try roasting the garlic or stir-frying the onion and garlic before blending it into the sauce.