Vegan Vegetable Mac & Cheese

So, I don't actually usually eat mac and cheese, firstly because I don't like macaroni, and secondly because I only really enjoy white sauce when it's in lasagna.

So, why did I make it then do I hear you ask?

Well when I started to eat a vegan diet, a friend told me: "Whatever you do, just don't buy vegan mac & cheese ready meals, they're horrendous!" Which just made me think... Can I make a decent vegan mac & cheese? As Barney in How I met Your Mother would say, Challenge accepted!

Obviously i made a few changes, one of which being that I used a different pasta shape to macaroni. But, it was actually very tasty and comforting for a cold night in.

I recommend adding some veg, I put spinach and pattypan squash in mine (it's a kind of marrow I got at the farmer's market), but really I can't think of any vegetable that wouldn't go in this.

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Ingredients:

• 100g Pasta (sky's the limit, any shape you could wish more, don't let yourself be told you have to use macaroni!)

Cauliflower White Sauce

• 3 Tbsp Vegetable Oil

• 3 Tbsp Flour (I used rye, you can also use wheat or corn)

• 400mL Soy Milk

• 1 Small Cauliflower

• 6 Tbsp Nutritional Yeast (or more to taste)

• Salt & Pepper

• 1 Tbs Chipotle

Optionals:

• 1 Red Onion

• 1 Garlic Clove

• 1/2 Squash

• 1 Handful of Spinach

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Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C.

2. Boil the pasta for 10 minutes (or according to pack instruction).

3. Drain and cool by running under cold water (this will also stop the pasta from sticking to itself.

4. Brown the onions and garlic in a pan with olive oil, then add the pattypan squash sliced and cook on a medium heat for 7 minutes with 100mL of water.

5. Add the spinach to the pan and leave on the heat for another minute.

6. Remove the vegetables from the heat.

For the white sauce:

1. Cut the cauliflower into chunks (remove the leaves but keep them, they can be eaten like cabbage leaves)

2. In one sauce pan, cook the cauliflower in salted boiling for 15 minutes (until soft).

3. In a different saucepan, make the white sauce:

4. Heat up the vegetable oil.

5. Add the flour and whisk on a medium heat for 1 minute.

6. Slowly add the soy milk into the pan while whisking. Make sure every time milk is added everything is whisked until it's combined before adding more milk.

7. Once the cauliflower is cooked, strain it and blend it until smooth.

8. Add the cauliflower purée to the white sauce.

9. Add the nutritional yeast, the chipotle and season to taste.

Assembly:

1. Combine the vegetables, pasta and white sauce and pour into an oven-proof dish.

2. Cook in the oven at 200°C for 10 minutes.

N.B.:I made a lot of white sauce so that I could freeze some to have ready in case of emergency, aka need for creamy pasta dish in an instant.