rainy days make for perfect comfort food nights

Eric has been sick so we decided some easy vegan comfort food was the perfect thing to make for dinner last night. I found a recipe for vegan macaroni and cheese without the fake cheeses so we decided to give it a try. I decided to add sweet potato fries to make it truly a comfort food night.

 

Of course, the first thing Eric says when I told him what we were making was "I thought we were making something easy!" Yeah, it's not boxed mac & cheese, so it does require a little work, but it wasn't that hard. We've made a pasta dish where cauliflower was used to replace a creamy diary product before so we knew what we were getting ourselves into for the most part and all the pictures from the recipe we followed looked delicious.

Mac & Cheese

 

Ingredients:
1 lb pasta
1 large cauliflower head
2 large carrots
1/2 cup nutritional yeast
1/3 cup olive oil
1/3 cup water
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup bread crumbs

 

Cook pasta. Boil cauliflower and carrots until soft enough to mash with fork. Drain water and place in food processor or blender. Blend cauliflower, carrots, oil, water, lemon juice, yeast flakes and seasonings until smooth and creamy. Pour pasta in a 9x13 dish, then pour "cheese" on top. Fold the pasta into the cheese. Cover with bread crumbs. Place under broiler for a few minutes to brown the top.

 

 

 

Sweet Potato Fries

 

Ingredients:

1 large sweet potato

olive oil

chili powder

paprika

salt

pepper

 

Cut the sweet potato into thin strips. Mix fries with other ingredients in a bowl until well coated. Spread fries out on a baking sheet in one single layer. Cook for 10 minutes, flip fries, then cook for an additional 10 minutes or until browned.

 

 

The fries don't always get very crispy. I haven't figured out the trick to getting crispy sweet potato fries without tons of oil and/or a deep fryer. If you know the trick, please let me know! It would make me a very happy lady.