Healthy, From-Scratch Versions of Your Favorite Vegan Junk Food

(Full disclosure: I received a free e-ARC for review through NetGalley.)

-- 3.5 stars --

Along with pizza, mac & cheese is one of my favorite, go-to, if you were stuck on a deserted island and could only eat one food for the rest of your life, vegan foodstuffs. Unlike pizza, though, there are precious few cookbooks devoted entirely to its delicious cheesy goodness.

If you're thinking, well duh, how many ways are there to make macaroni and cheese, then clearly you don't read my blog. (Spoiler alert: there are currently twenty-two posts tagged "macaroni and cheese," representing a small fraction of the recipes I have sampled and/or created, ranging from the classic Creamy Mac & Cheese with Daiya to the less traditional Mac & Pepperjack Pizza.)

So you can imagine my excitement when I got a whiff of Robin Robertson's latest cookbook, Vegan Mac and Cheese - More than 50 Delicious Plant-Based Recipes for the Ultimate Comfort Food.

My anticipation was tempered a bit once I finally had the book in my hungry little hands: all of the recipes tip toward the health food end of the scale. Not that I have a problem with healthy vegan food, but you gotta live a little, you know? Throw a few unabashedly junky recipes in there to liven things up, or else let us know right in the title that this isn't ONE OF THOSE kinds of cookbooks. Anything else feels like a total Bad Place kind of move.

http://www.easyvegan.info/img/the-good-place-what-the-fork.gif

The recipes I tried were a bit of a mixed bag, ranging from "pretty yummy" to "more trouble than it's worth" (full rundown below). The cheese sauces utilize a variety of "bases" (if you can call them that; perhaps "key ingredients" is more accurate?), ranging from cashews to tofu to carrots and potatoes. With few exceptions, the ingredients are pretty common and easy to find in American grocery stores. (Pro tip: if a recipe calls for miso and you don't feel like buying an entire container just for a teaspoon, tahini is an okay substitute.) The recipes are pretty straightforward and easy to follow, and not terribly labor intensive (though some do create an undogly amount of dishes).

There's a nice variety of dishes here; the recipes are grouped under five subheadings, including "Basic Vegan Mac & Cheese," "Global Cheesy Macs," "Mac and Veggies," "Meaty Macs," and "Fun with Mac & Cheese" (which isn't so much new recipes as some interesting ideas of how to repurpose leftovers, like making mac omelets, waffles, and cheese balls). I can honestly say, as a self-proclaimed expert whose life goal is to try every vegan mac & cheese recipe ever published in any major cookbook, there are some inspired and singular recipes in here - as well as some that are merely "meh" (even accounting for my strong preference for junk food mac & cheese).

https://www.flickr.com/photos/smiteme/49659205498/in/dateposted-public/

Roasted Butternut Mac Uncheese

This is the first recipe in the "Mac and Veggies" section, and for good reason - it's forking amazing. The cheese sauce is a mix of roasted butternut squash (yum!) and soaked raw cashews. It doesn't taste much like melted Daiya or Follow Your Heart cheese (few-to-none of the recipes in this book do), and that's okay! It's its own thing.

Pro tip: if you don't have any soy milk on hand (thanks, Corona virus), water works just fine too. Throw a few extra cashews into the mix to compensate.

Bonus points if you roast the squash seeds and use them as a garnish. (The recipe calls for pumpkin seeds, which seems ... kind of silly?)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/smiteme/49659205208/in/dateposted-public/

Cashew Cheesy Mac

Another winner! Roasted red peppers lend this dish both a distinct taste, and its eye-popping, boxed mac & cheese, neon orange color.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/smiteme/49659746676/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/smiteme/49659205018/in/dateposted-public/

Blushing Baked Ziti

This is where things started to spiral for me (metaphorically, not literally, though - good eye! - I did swap out the ziti for fusilli). Despite my initial skepticism, I decided to give this casserole a whirl, mostly because I had a brick of tofu with a close expiration date. At first blush (lol), it reminded me of spaghetti pie: just with a differently shaped macaroni, and more layers (read: steps). Rather than the classic configuration of pasta-tofu-red sauce-optional shredded cheese, it goes red sauce-pasta-red sauce-tofu-pasta-red sauce-tofu.

So many layers! So much long division! So much work! So much mess everywhere! All for a dish that just left me wishing I'd made spaghetti pie instead (insert sad face here).

Honestly, this recipe is way more complicated than it needs to be, and I don't think the many (so many!) extra layers do anything for it. If anything, I felt like the ricotta tofu didn't bake as thoroughly, and with the sauce and pasta in such close proximity, you may as well just mix them from jump street.

Fwiw, the nut parm (made with ray almonds and nutritional yeast) is seriously amazing. I am putting it on all the things now.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/smiteme/49676705301/in/dateposted-public/

Free Mac

Last and sadly least (SO SAD!), we have the Free Mac. The sauce is mix of onions, carrots, and potatoes boiled in a vegetable broth, then run through a blender to create a mock cheesy sauce. I actually don't think this would be bad if not for the broth: with three cups of the stuff, this mac & cheese ends up tasting a lot like vegetable soup. Not bad, necessarily, but disconcerting: you have a dish that looks like one thing (macaroni and cheese) but tastes like another (veggie soup).

My suggestion: use water in place of broth, in whole or part, and add extra spices to taste.

This is the rare macaroni and cheese dish that improves as leftovers: once the sauce has had a chance to soak into the pasta, the taste of veggie soup isn't quite so overwhelming. It's also really good mixed with a mildly flavored couscous in a 1:1 ratio. (I like preparing it on the stovetop with a little vegan chicken broth, carrots, and corn.)

So there you have it: two A recipes, two C minuses. Not my most glowing cookbook review. Blame the sky-high expectations that accompany any mention of vegan mac-n-cheese.

BUT, if you're half the vegan mac & cheese fan I am, you probably want to take Vegan Mac and Cheese for a spin anyway. There are some neat ideas in here, and I can't wait to try the Cheesy Mac Muffins (but probably using my own junk food mac & cheese concoction; there's no beating Daiya, mkay).

http://www.easyvegan.info/2020/04/28/vegan-mac-and-cheese-by-robin-robertson/ ( )

The definitive book on mac and uncheese

There are three basic uncheese sauces used in this book: ground cashew, whipped tofu, and pureed vegetables. These are staples of vegan cooking and offer no surprises. What is best about this book is the many ways that Ms Robertson uses these sauces in variations of pasta and uncheese. The recipes include basic mac and uncheese, a dry version to keep in the pantry like commercial boxed mac and cheese, international versions of mac and uncheese that draw on Thai, Mexican, and Italian influences. There are also recipes for some staples and add ins like vegan sausage and vegan bacon so you don't have to buy them.

I think that this will be the only vegan mac and uncheese book that you will need. Start with the basics and adapt on your own.

Two notes: 1) I have never seen a vegan Thai red curry paste. Red curry paste starts with fermented shrimp paste. Read the ingredients on the pack. 2) While firni, Middle-Eastern noodle pudding with cardamom is one of my absolutely favorite foods, it has no business being in a book about mac and uncheese.

I received a review copy of "Vegan Mac and Cheese: More than 50 Delicious Plant-Based Recipes for the Ultimate Comfort Food" by Robin Robertson from Harvard Common Press through NetGalley.com. ( )

Vegan Mac & Cheese by Robin Robertson

Moving more and more toward a vegan diet this book definitely caught my eye when it appeared on NetGalley. I love pasta and cheese so being able to make it “vegan” seemed a neat trick.

The book includes a variety of ways to achieve that rich cheesy smooth taste by using tofu, roux, nut cheeses and/or pureed vegetables. The main ingredient I will have difficulty finding, living in Lebanon, is the nutritional yeast but I am definitely going to do my best to make one or more of the recipes in this book. I already have this author’s 1000 Vegan Recipes cookbook and love it so will be looking for this book to add to my shelves.

What did I like?
* The multitude of variations for toppings, vegetables, seasonings and more
* The global recipes. I have had pastitsio and some other noodle dishes from other countries but they always use real cheese and meat so the options in this book are of great interest to me.
* The concise easy to read directions
* The photographs
* The fact that with t his book I could prepare macaraoni and uncheese every week for a year.

Thank you to NetGallely and Quarto Publishing Group – Harvard Common Press for the ARC – This is my honest review.

5 Stars ( )