This time she undertook the Mac Daddy recipe from Veganomicon. If ya don’t know, Mac Daddy is a vegan baked macaroni & cheese dish and it’s phenomenal. Also, if you’re interested in vegan cooking, Veganomicon is an absolute must. Everything in that cookbook is three stars or better.
The first thing to do with this recipe is to boil up a box of pasta. She used elbows this time around. Sadly, NI showed up too late to get a picture, but, honestly, taking a picture of a box of pasta is pretty fucking pointless. You know what it looks like.
While you wait for the water to boil for your pasta, you may as well pour yourself a drink.
MinneSarah opted for some good old-fashioned vodka Red Bulls this time around.
For this recipe, you’ll need the Cheezy Sauce ingredients (see below) plus:
1 lb. of extra firm tofu
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp lemon juice
Once the pasta is boiling and the drinks are poured, it’s time to start on the Cheesy Sauce. For those who’ve never tried it, this is pretty much the best vegan cheese option. It’s a little spicy and definitely better than anything that can be found in a store.
The Mac Daddy recipe calls for a double batch of Cheezy Sauce. NI’s taken the liberty of doubling up the quantities in the recipe below, so if you decide to make this at home, just use the numbers below.
4 cups veggie broth or water
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 tbsp olive oil
6 cloves of garlic
A pinch of dried thyme
1/2 tsp salt
Several pinches fresh black pepper
1/4 tsp turmeric
1 1/2 cups nutritional yeast
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp prepared yellow mustard
First, combine the broth and flour in a bowl and whisk it with a fork until it’s dissolved. Set aside momentarily.
Second, mince up the garlic and place it in a small sauce pan with the olive oil. MinneSarah owns a sweet garlic press that makes this step about a thousand times less tedious than actually chopping the garlic yourself.
Fry up the garlic or low heat for a couple of minutes. Once it’s sufficiently golden, add the thyme, salt, & pepper and let it fry for 15-20 seconds.
Add the broth, turmeric, & nooch and raise the heat to medium. Use a whisk to stir the mixture. It should start bubbling up within a couple of minutes.
Once the mixture is bubblin’, stir in the lemon juice & mustard. Give it a couple more minutes and blaow! Best vegan cheese ever!
Preheat your oven to 325, because it’s time to put all the pieces together.
God willing, by this time your noodles are done, strained & good to go.
First, crumble up your tofu into the baking dish. Add the salt, olive oil, & lemon juice. Press & stir the mixture with a fork until it becomes something resembling ricotta cheese.
Add half a cup of the Cheezy sauce to the tofu & stir it all together.
Add the macaroni to the tofu/Cheezy mixture and then pour three more cups of Cheezy Sauce on top of that.
Stir up the whole mixture and then flatten it out with a spatula. Once the mixture is level, add the rest of the Cheesy goodness and smooth it all out with your aforementioned spatula. It should look something like this:
Put that in the oven and let it bake for about half an hour or until it’s slightly brown.
Now, last time I checked, this was America. As such, MinneSarah deemed it necessary that we add chopped up Smart Dogs to the mix. Also, because MinneSarah believes in at least attempting to balance out meals, she decided we should steam some broccoli to add to the finished dish.
So, while the Mac Daddy was baking, she chopped & steamed some broccoli.
Somewhere Dana Carvey is smiling.
While the broccoli was steaming, she chopped up the Smart Dogs so we could use the steaming water to boil them up.
Boil up the Smart Dogs for just a couple of minutes.
By now, hopefully, the Mac Daddy is lightly browned and ready for consumption.
Boom! Let the whole thing settle on the stove top for 10 minutes. Once it’s cooled off a bit, grab yourself a plate, fork, and 3rd or 5th drink: It’s time to eat!
That’s as real as it gets!
As always, big thanks to MinneSarah for hosting, cooking, letting Newest Industry take pictures, and being suitably passive-aggressive as we ate and left without cleaning up any of the dishes.
If you’re on the Twitter, you should definitely be following MinneSarah (@MinneSarah), especially if you enjoy cats, Mormon fashion, and the 90’s.
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