recipe

Sunday, Sunday... so far the weekend has been lazy! Which is nice. But we did do some cooking, so I thought I would share a recipe and some pictures.

Friday night Trav called me to let me know he was stopping at the store on his way home, and wanted to know if I thought he should just pick up some chicken from the deli there. That sounded great, as I wasn't in the mood for the effort involved in cooking a protein... it was still rainy & crappy out, which just makes me tired. But, I decided to make Pasta & Yeasty Cheese to go with our chicken.

Sorry for the lack luster pictures, I'll get better at them I swear... but pasta & sauce, not the most interesting thing to shoot!

Macaroni & Yeasty "Cheese"

You will need:

1/2 cup Margarine

1/2 cup Flour

3 1/2 cups Boiling Water

1 1/2 teaspoons Salt

2 tablespoons Soy Sauce

1 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder

1/4 cup Oil

1 cup Nutritional Yeast Flakes (grown on molasses) - these can be bought from most natural food stores

1 box Noodles - elbows or rotini work best.

Directions:

Boil water and cook noodles as you begin the sauce, drain when noodles are done to taste.

Put margarine into a medium sauce pan and melt over medium heat. Once completely melted, mix flour in slowly until all is added and mixture is pasty. Slowly mix in boiling water to create roux. Keep on medium low heat and stir until mixture is smooth and starting to thicken. Add salt, soy sauce, and garlic powder... whisking to break up any lumps. Stir or whisk continuously to insure mixture doesn't thicken too quickly or form skin. Add oil, and once incorporated, add yeast flakes... again whisking to break down lumps. Stir for another minute or two until desired thickness (think melted frosting consistency, not soupy nor pasty).

Add sauce to pasta and stir to cover. Can be served hot or room temp.

Enjoy!!

Side notes: This is a completely vegan dish. It is a little high in salt... so if that is a concern you may cut down on the actual salt added. In my opinion, definitely loses something though if you add less then 1/2 teaspoon.

Recipe can be halved or doubled with no problems.

Left over sauce also be used as a spread on toast, yummy!

This dish might sound weird... but to me it is the ultimate comfort food (and I've completely won Travis over to it too). Its smooth, rich, garlicy and slightly nutty (from the flakes), and just so delicious. I end up eating it for almost every meal until the leftovers are gone!

And if you are worried about using up the container of yeast flakes, don't be... for one, you will end up using this recipe again and again. But also, they have such a great flavor you can use them in tons of ways: sprinkled on popcorn, add them to another sauce for a little kick, etc. Plus they are high in protein.

As for Saturday night... my beau decided to do the cooking (I think he was bored for so much laziness!). We love a nice steak, so whenever they go on sale we pick some up and toss them in the freezer. That way we basically always have a quick meal available.

The nice thing about a good steak is that you really only need salt & pepper, and it ends up amazing:



Trav used bacon fat in the pan to give the sear a bit of extra flavor... but otherwise we just salted & peppered both sides. It looks super bloody in the above picture, but it was done perfectly inside (I like mine just a bit above rare). Cous-cous with sun-dried tomatoes, a veggie mix on the side... perfect.

Today we are heading to Ro & Pat's for a Super Bowl party, so I'm sure I'll have more to share tomorrow.

Ciao!