Mac 'n' Cheese reborn!

WOW! Now that is definitely what I've been missing since I started this diet almost a year ago!

And what, you ask, elicits such a strong reaction from me? This evening I just found a way to make mac 'n' cheese in a way that almost perfectly emulates the mac 'n' cheese I grew up on as a kid. (For comparison, I've put the old and new recipes below.) If you want to talk about my favorite food from childhood, the ultimate comfort food when I feel homesick, or sad, or lonely, or just in need of some good Minnesotan flavor - this was always the recipe I turned to. And it is awful for you! Seriously. I've included the comparison of nutrition information for both recipes below as well - but picture this: velveeta+cream of chicken soup+milk (usually 1-2%)+elbow macaroni. Boom. So delicious and so terribly bad for you!

But I digress. The real point here is that I have found a way to reconnect with tastes I associate with childhood in a way that is both within the diet restrictions and is a LOT healthier than the stuff I actually used to eat. I call this a huge success! This has also been one of my original goals since I started this crazy diet of doom: to find a way to create my family's mac 'n' cheese using ingredients I could eat - because I absolutely refused to believe that I'd have to say goodbye to it forever. Yay for this new recipe then! I proved myself right - HA! [The fact that this recipe makes a mountain of mac 'n' cheese is also a rather wonderful thing - seriously, I could eat this twice a day for a week and a half easily!]

So, without further ado, I give you my new Mac 'n' Cheese recipe. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

Pseudo-Vegan Mac 'n' Cheese with Chicken
[Really, I should just call it non-dairy mac 'n' cheese because it's obviously not vegan, but it's so much funnier to say it's pseudo-vegan. (It is now possible that the vegan gods will strike me down in a fit of rage...)]

This recipe is modified from the original shown here. (I tried the original recipe first - and hated it. Maybe I'm just not a savory mac 'n' cheese person - but the garlic and the paprika overpowered and made it taste horrible!)

1 1/2 lbs whole wheat pasta, cooked (I prefer fusilli or rotini, gives it a nice texture)
1 1/2 cups plain soy milk
1/2 cup low-sodium chicken broth
1 1/2 cups nutritional yeast*
1 Tbsp sea salt
3/4 block firm tofu
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
2 Tbsp vegan margarine
3/4 Tbsp sugar or to taste (i.e. not quite the full Tbsp, but if you're a stickler for exact measurements, that's equivalent to 2 1/4 tsp, FYI)
1-1 1/2 tsp basil to taste
1 cup cooked, shredded chicken**

*Note: nutritional yeast does not equal yeast for bread dough and such. It's in the vitamins/nutritional supplements section, not the baking aisle.
**Instructions for making your own shredded chicken (during the process of making chicken soup) are here.

Preheat oven to 350 deg F.
1. Blend soy milk, chicken broth, and tofu together. Use a high setting - you want it thoroughly mixed. [I highly recommend cutting the tofu into smaller chunks before putting into the blender.]
2. Add nutritional yeast, salt, oil, margarine. Blend well.
3. Add sugar and basil, blend. Taste the sauce - add more sugar or basil until it tastes good. The sauce should be very runny - not to worry, it'll thicken in the oven.
[Note: the first time you use nutritional yeast, well, it takes a little getting used to, so the sauce may taste "off" to you. Don't add too much sugar or basil, though. If you're unsure what "tastes good," go with my amounts first, and then adjust the next time you make it.]
4. Pour pasta into a 13x9 baking dish - use something that will hold 5 quarts or more! [Mine's a 5-qt metal cake pan] Add chicken and stir around (careful that the pasta doesn't fly out of the pan!) until evenly distributed.
5. Pour sauce evenly over pasta & chicken. Make sure you don't miss the edges and corners of the pasta - you want the whole surface completely covered with sauce.
6. Bake for 15-25 minutes, until top pasta is a little crispy and the sauce has thickened. (Careful not to leave it in until the pasta gets crunchy - no one wants crunchy mac 'n' cheese!)
7. Pause to marvel at just how much mac 'n' cheese you just made - and then serve and eat!

Seriously! Look at the huge amount of mac 'n' cheese you will be faced with when it comes out of the oven!


Notes:
- I recommend serving with freshly steamed green beans. You could, of course, choose anything you like, but the green beans taste so good with the mac 'n' cheese!
- This saves well in Tupperware in the fridge for about 2 weeks - if you're like me and cook just for yourself. It also freezes well.
- When heating up in the microwave, I suggest putting it in a bowl with a few drops of water, and covering the bowl. I generally put it in for about 1.5-2 minutes. Then stir when it comes out - the water and cover will make sure the microwave doesn't try out the mac 'n' cheese during reheating.

[For comparison, here's my family's old recipe for mac 'n' cheese. Below are some the nutritional breakdowns for each recipe.]

Nina's Family's Mac 'n' Cheese

1 1/2 cups elbow macaroni
1/4 lb. Velveeta cheese, cubed (~1/2-in cubes)
1/4 cup milk, more if needed (we always used 1%)
1 can cream of chicken soup

1. Cook and drain pasta. Pour back into pan over low heat.
2. Add Velveeta a little at a time, stir until fully melted. [This is a good way to build arm muscles... no joke!]
3. Add milk and soup, stir until thoroughly mixed and heated through. If not creamy enough, add more milk.
4. Serve warm.

Nutrition Facts were calculated using the SparkPeople.com Recipe Calculator for my best attempt at approximating of how much each recipe makes - 25 servings of the Pseudo-Vegan recipe, and 8 servings of my family's recipe.

Nutrition Facts: Pseudo-Vegan Mac 'n' Cheese with Chicken
Based on 25 servings
Calories: 172.1
Total Fat: 3.9 g
Saturated Fat: 1.2 g
[This comes from the chicken mainly.]
Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.8 g
Monounsaturated Fat: 0.7 g
Cholesterol: 6.6 mg
[Again, from the chicken.]
Sodium: 309.7 mg
Potassium: 215.9 mg
Total Carbohydrate: 21.9 g
Dietary Fiber: 5.1 g
Sugars: 1.0 g
Protein: 12.8 g

Nutrition Facts: Nina's Family's Mac 'n' Cheese
Based on 8 servings
Calories: 229.4
Total Fat: 6.0 g
Saturated Fat: 2.4 g
[This comes from the Velveeta mainly.]
Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.4 g
Monounsaturated Fat: 0.8 g
Cholesterol: 13.4 mg
[Probably coming from both the soup and the Velveeta.]
Sodium: 458.1 mg
Potassium: 30.1 mg
Total Carbohydrate: 36.6 g
Dietary Fiber: 1.5 g
Sugars: 2.3 g
Protein: 9.0 g

[Yeah, I'll let that all speak for itself...]

A New Spin on Minnesotan Soul-Food

My profile says that I'm a proud Minnesotan by birth. And, except for a brief 6-year stint of living in New England between the ages of 2-8, I grew up there as well. I lived in the same town until I went to college...which was 1 town away and still definitely in Minnesota. (Purely coincidence that the college was so close to home, though.) Suffice it to say that Minnesota runs through my veins. And I grew up on hot dish. That's pretty much what dinner was about 6 nights out of the week. Hot dish is my soul food. That comfy meal that I have on a blue day to cheer me up. Some of my favorites from childhood include Cream Tuna on Rice, my family's Macaroni & Cheese recipe, Tater Tot Hot Dish, and Hamburger Hot Dish (of which there are multiple versions).

You're now asking me (unless you're actually Minnesotan yourself), Um, what is "hot dish?" The official translation for "hot dish" from Minnesotan English to Other-49-States-English is "casserole."

The definition that you'll find in any Minnesotan English Dictionary (if one actually existed...) is:
Hot Dish n. A meal comprised of 4 elements: a meat, a vegetable, a grain, and a sauce. Some hot dishes also include an optional 5th element: a starch.

I would add to that definition (5th element: a ton of fat. Perhaps you see where this is going... Yeah, since I started this diet, I've been unable to eat any of the hot dishes I grew up on. Nor could I use any of the new ones I've discovered in my Minnesotan cookbooks over the years. (Yes, I own more than one - 3 to be exact.) The classic sauce for a hot dish is cream of mushroom soup. Cream of chicken soup comes in a close second. Ketchup or BBQ sauce an easy third. Check the No List - none of those are allowed. Cream soups are dairy based, and have you seen the amount of fat in one can of it? It was a sad day when I had to acknowledge the fact that hot dishes seemed off-limits while I was on this diet...

And then, one day, I discovered that butternut squash soup has the consistency one needs for the sauce element of a hot dish! My world suddenly became so much brighter! And I set about concocting my own version of a hot dish. And it makes me so happy - sticks to my bones the way a real hot dish should, and makes use of left-overs just as hot dishes were made to do! As the Guinness guys would say, "Brilliant!"

I made this last Thursday, after a few days of eating my butternut squash/carrot/leek soup. The pictured version is the result of the recipe I've posted below, but I've added some alternatives to the recipe at the end - since the whole idea of a hot dish is, of course, to be versatile and to use up food that will go bad. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

Chicken & Butternut Soup Hot Dish
[Note that this recipe might actually take longer to make than the average Minnesotan would expect a hot dish to take, but it's worth it, believe me!]



Sauce: About half of the Butternut Squash Soup recipe found here (about 4-5 cups?) - or really, use whatever butternut squash soup you want to use (Whole Foods has a great boxed version that doesn't use pepper in the creation)
Meat: 1 boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into small chunks
Veggie: 3/4 cup corn, give or take depending on how much corn you like (I use frozen, but you could use fresh off the cob just as easily)
Starch: 2 medium-sized red potatoes, cubed
Grain: About 1.5-2 cups grains from "Grandma's Grains" recipe (not my grandma, though)
Approx. 1/2 cup water
Ground cinnamon, to taste (probably about 1/2 tsp)
Ground nutmeg, to taste (probably about 1/4 tsp)
Ground ginger, to taste (probably less than 1/4 tsp)
Pinch of salt

1. In a medium pan, bring enough water to boil to cover potatoes. Once boiling, add potatoes and lower to medium heat. Cook until potatoes are soft enough to stick a fork through, but not mushy. Remove from heat, drain water and set aside.

2. Put corn in a small pan and add enough water to slightly cover bottom of pan (not enough to cover corn). Cover and simmer over very low heat until corn has steamed and water has evaporated. Usually about 6-7 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside.

2. Put butternut squash soup in large saucepan over medium heat. Stir in water to desired consistency. (Honestly, the amount above is pure guesswork - this depends more on the consistency of the soup you're using and how runny you want your sauce to be). Add cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. (Again, the amounts listed above are guesses, which is why I say "to taste.") Heat until soup begins to foam on top and is hot to the touch (the old "pinky finger test"), but not boiling.

3. While soup is cooking, sear chicken pieces on a skillet over medium-high heat, stirring and flipping continuously. Cook until middle of thickest chunks are no longer pink. Remove from heat and set aside.

4. Once soup is hot, add a pinch of salt. Taste soup, and add more spices if needed. Stir in grain mixture (should be precooked, don't add the grains uncooked!) and heat for about 2-3 minutes. Add potatoes, corn, and chicken. Reduce to low heat, cover, and simmer for about 10 minutes, allowing flavors to meld together and all elements to heat equally.

To round out the meal, serve with whole grain bread and steamed green beans and a side of Waldorf Chicken Salad found here, minus the chicken chunks.

---
An alternative to this recipe: instead of using the grain mixture, use about 1-1.5 cups of whole grain rotini. Cook to not quite done (pre-al dente?), since simmering in the soup will cook the pasta the rest of the way through.

I've also considering trying peas instead of corn, to give some different colors to this hot dish.

I think, for a vegetarian, one could certainly use tofu here, or just skip the meat part (although a little part of me cringes to say that, because that essentially undoes the whole idea of a hot dish...)