Mac & Cheeze

When I tell people that I'm vegan, 9 times out of 10 the response is something like "I could never give up cheese." I must have just been meant to be a vegan, because I never really liked cheese that much in the first place. As a kid I mostly refused to eat it. Going vegan was easy in general, but giving up cheese was beyond easy.

The one form of cheese I did really like is more processed cheese product than actual cheese - the Velveeta type sauce that comes in a pouch with Kraft mac & cheese. It was the first thing my mom let me cook on my own, and it stayed a comfort food through college. I tried Road's End Mac & Chreeze a while back, and found it completely disgusting. I couldn't even eat it, I threw it out. Since then I haven't bothered much with vegan cheese, but tonight I tried Susan V's Easy Macaroni and "Cheeze."It's really good! The sauce looks exactly like the Velveeta stuff, and has the same creamy texture. Doesn't taste like it, of course, but it does taste good. All in all a fast, satisfying and comforting dish, with some nutritional street cred to boot. I used whole wheat rotini pasta. The recipe calls for a pound of pasta but my box had 12 oz, so mine came out extra cheezy. I think I'll stick to this proportion, it's creamy and yummy. I used vanilla hemp milk instead of fat-free soy, which probably made it even richer.

I'm having surgery next week and will be recovering for a long while, so I'm stocking up my freezer. I hope this reheats well! I'm planning on cooking up a storm this week, hopefully I'll follow through.

P.S. Here's some of the yummy, healthy things I've been making as a tester for the Happy Herbivore cookbook. This book is going to rock!