(jazzy music)
- What's up, everybody?
It's your girl Merle, and today we are back
with another cool time-interval vegan experience.
That's what I'm calling it.
We've done brownies.
We've done vegan grilled cheese.
We've done pizza.
Today, we're doing mac and cheese.
I feel like when I was first trying
to get onto the vegan diet,
mac and cheese was one of the things
I knew I was gonna miss the most.
So I'm hoping that this can be helpful
for all of you out there who are just starting
to introduce more plant-based meals into your diet.
Let's get right into this.
For this first one,
I'm gonna be making vegan mac in five minutes.
I've got a nice mug here.
It's my favorite mug.
It's my mom's mug.
Well, she gifted it to me.
Anyway, I've got a half a cup of macaroni here.
I'm gonna pop that in.
And then I've got a half a cup of oat milk.
We're gonna add some salt
and just a little bit of sugar.
I'm gonna pop that right in the old microwave.
We wanna make sure we're watching this diligently.
Diligently.
So when I take it out, I'm gonna give it a little stir.
If you do forget to check,
you will end up with an explosion.
I did this previously,
when I was trying to make it.
This is what you'll be dealing with here
if you don't stir it every 30 seconds.
You don't want that.
Trust me. It's a mess.
All right, this is looking good and cooked.
And now we're gonna just add our last few ingredients.
I guess it's not exactly five minutes, 'cause, you know,
give or take what it takes
for you to put the stuff into things and...
Whatever. You get it.
It's really close to five minutes, all right?
We're gonna add in two more tablespoons of oat milk,
nutritional yeast,
and a quarter teaspoon of rice wine vinegar.
Maybe you're thinking like, what?
Rice wine vinegar?
The sugar and the rice wine vinegar are in there
to help to mimic the lactic acid
you would get from real cheese.
Science, baby.
Ooh, she's coming together right now.
Magnificent.
Where were you when I was first starting?
This is fantastic.
Really quick. Easy.
All right, we're off to an excellent start.
Let's get after the next one.
Time for our second vegan mac and cheese.
This time we're doing it in 50 minutes.
We're gonna start by taking some cashews
and one large carrot.
We're gonna bring that to a boil,
and we're gonna boil them for 12 to 15 minutes
until the carrots are tender.
I'm just gonna strain our carrots and cashews
and add them to my blender.
Now, I'm gonna add some water, tamari, some potato starch,
which is a thickening agent, some rice flour,
onion powder, white miso, nutritional yeast, sugar, salt,
and finally, some vegan cream cheese.
Now, we're just gonna blend that all together
for about 60 to 90 seconds.
Woo.
Beautifully smooth.
Luxurious, even.
In the meantime, we're going to cook our macaroni.
I'm using a pound of elbow macaroni,
just for nostalgia's sake.
All right, so our noodles are all cooked.
I'm gonna go strain these,
but I am gonna reserve one cup of the pasta water.
Now, I'm just going to add my cheese mixture
back into my pot.
I'm going to stir my cheese mixture here over medium heat
for like six minutes until it starts to thicken.
The heat is what's gonna activate the potato starch.
So now we've got our cheese sauce all thickened up.
We're gonna add in our macaroni.
Ooh, will the pot be big enough?
That is the question.
Now, let me just mix this all in together.
And against all odds,
we are going to try to mix in our reserved pasta water here.
Now we're just going to bring this to a simmer
and stir it until it thickens once more.
Then we'll add our vegan butter, and we're good to go.
Oh man, look at this. It's so creamy.
Woo. I want to eat it now.
I know those of you out there who are skeptical
about vegan food are looking at this thinking,
that looks good.
Ooh, yeah.
(upbeat music)
This is a fantastic, fairly simple recipe,
and it doesn't take very long.
It is so creamy and delicious.
The flavor is amazing.
I'm gonna be honest with you.
I'm just thinking about
how I'm about to eat this whole entire pot today.
And we still have another mac and cheese to make.
Let's do the third mac and cheese.
All right, everybody.
We've finally made it to our last recipe.
We're gonna make a five-hour mac and cheese.
The first thing we're gonna do,
we're gonna take some macadamia nuts,
and we're gonna add them to a food processor.
If you prefer to make a different plant-based milk,
feel free, by all means.
But just so you know,
macadamia nuts can make for a plant-based milk as well.
(blender whirring)
So the whole purpose of this
is to break down the macadamia nuts before we soak them.
So now we're just gonna add our crushed macadamia nuts
to a bowl, and we're gonna cover that with water.
Finally, I'm gonna add a little bit of sauerkraut brine,
and what the sauerkraut is gonna do
is it's gonna add that funky, milky tang
that you would get from cheese or traditional dairy.
Science.
All right, so now we're gonna pop this in the fridge
for four hours or up to overnight.
While our macadamia nuts are soaking,
we're gonna make our shiitake bacon.
So first things first,
I've got about 12 ounces of shiitake mushrooms here.
And now I'm just gonna add some olive oil,
maple syrup, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, and pepper.
And you can add a little truffle salt
if you want to be super fancy, but no need.
It'll still be delicious.
Now, we're gonna take our mushrooms,
and we're gonna transfer them to a baking sheet.
We want to make sure we give the mushrooms
plenty of space on the baking sheet.
Then we're gonna bake these at 300 degrees Fahrenheit.
That's 150 degrees Celsius.
Then we're gonna take a head of garlic,
and we're just to slice the top off.
I'm gonna drizzle some olive oil over it.
Then we're gonna place the top back on,
and we're gonna wrap it up in some aluminum foil,
and we're gonna add it to the oven
for the last hour of the mushrooms' cook time.
Once our garlic has cooled off, we're going to unwrap it
and squeeze the roasted garlic out and discard our peels.
So oddly satisfying.
We're going to take our mushrooms
and finely chop them up.
Now, we're gonna take our chopped mushrooms,
some breadcrumbs, some truffle oil,
and a little bit of salt,
and this will become our breadcrumb topping.
Now it's time for us to make our cheese sauce and our pasta.
We're gonna add our macadamia nuts
and the soaking liquid to our blender.
Some tapioca starch, nutritional yeast,
our roasted garlic, miso paste, and some sugar.
And then we're gonna blend that up.
(blender whirring)
Then we're gonna bring a pot of salted water to a boil,
and we're gonna cook our shells in the water.
I'm using shells 'cause I feel a little fancier,
but you can use whatever you want.
We'll cook them until they're al dente,
and then we'll set them aside.
We're gonna use that same pot... less dishes...
and add our cheese sauce and our pasta water.
We're gonna cook for about six to eight minutes
until it thickens up.
Then we'll just fold in our pasta,
mix it all up until it's melted and combined,
and cook for two to four minutes.
We're gonna transfer half of our mac and cheese
into a 12-inch baking dish.
And then just for some extra ooey-gooeyness,
I'm gonna add some vegan cheese slices.
You don't have to do this if you don't want to,
or if you don't have access to store-bought vegan cheese.
I'm just doing it to be a little extra.
Then we're gonna cover that
with the rest of our mac and cheese
and top it with our beautiful breadcrumb topping.
Then we're gonna cover that with foil
and pop it in the oven for about 30 minutes.
(upbeat music)
I mean the little hint of truffle oil
really kicks this thing into the next gear.
This one spoils you
because you get the creaminess from the cheese sauce,
the crunch from the topping,
and then that punch of the shiitake bacon.
What a day. What a time to be alive.
We had three fantastic vegan mac and cheeses all for you.
Please let me know what you'd like to see next
in the comments below.
Muah. Have a marvelous day.