Veganspiration

not all of this is vegan, but i am highly impressed with this youtube series called "great depression cooking." it stars the uber-adorable great grandma clara, who teaches viewers how to make the meals her family ate during the 1930s and tells charming stories about bootleggers. i want my grandma to do this too!



this one (pasta with peas) is kinda carb-heavy, but vegan, cheap and soul-warming. i made it last week (with tricolor rotini) and it was one of my favourite things i've eaten in weeks! i added carrots with the peas, and substituted a big can of diced tomatoes for tomato sauce. i also recommend basil. who knew the depression was so friggin tasty?

one day i hope to start my own "depression cooking" web series, wherein we will eat a whole box of oreos and call it breakfast. hey-o.

Yes... It's vegan... And I'm back. ...WOO!

hey kids!

today we're gonna learn how to make vegan mac and cheese so amazing that your non-vegan friends will nod appreciatively and ask politely for seconds!

to do this, you will need:


INGREDIENTS:
- 1 package elbow macaroni (or whatever, but elbow macaroni is more traditional and fun)
- 2 packages follow your heart brand cheddar
- arbitrary but generous helping of earth balance or other margarine
- soy milk
- nutritional yeast (we like red star brand cos it's tasty)

most of this stuff is at whole foods, or if you're lucky, your gentrified bodega.

so, first step - boil some water for your pasta. olive oil, salt, you know how to cook pasta. while that's heating up, we start on the fun part - CHEESE SAUCE.

first step? cheese! you're gonna want to slice that sucker up into little cubes about 1cm across each way, cos they melt faster that way.


follow your heart is our favourite brand of soy cheese, cos it melts really well and is abnormally delicious. i always end up eating a little piece while i'm slicing it up.

got a wok? it's a good tool for practicing the ancient asian art of vegan mac and cheese. heat up your cheese on a medium flame, poking around with a wooden spoon to make sure all the little pieces are melting.

next step is margarine - pretty much as much as you're comfortable with. we don't really measure it; we just add it in delicious blobs.


soy milk - again, not measured, but not very much at all - just enough to give it a liquid consistency. we add nutritional yeast cos that shit's good for you and tastes good, which means you can add as much as you want and it's practically like taking a vitamin. the red star brand has that awesome baked macaroni and cheese flavour that we love so much. you may want to add more earth balance, fatty.

is your water boiling? probs! throw in your elbow macaroni and follow the cooking instructions on the box.

in the meantime, make sure you stir your cheese sauce consistently!


it should look somethin like this:


oh, your pasta's probs done. time to strain it:

hey elena, you should do some dishes.

anyway, this is the fun part: mixing the pasta with the cheese sauce. i feel like you can figure out how to do this on your own, but it looks so pretty in the picture:


AND THEN EAT IT. this stuff is crazy delicious while it's all steamy and fresh, but it's also good when eaten right out of the fridge at three in the morning and you're drunk.


not that we'd know anything about that.