Stress, Money, Faux Cheese, and Comfort Food

Last week was a very long week, completely full of stress, and I’m afraid I had a little a lot of slipage in the dVegan eating area as a result.

Of course in the middle of trying to straighten out the mix up with the balance transfer of one credit card to another — the bank receiving the balance sent an account number consisting of 15 digits rather than 16. Someone in their IT QA department should be fired since none of their computer programs caught the error and it printed on the check that way and then whoever is supposed to verify and sign the checks should be fired. The bank the money was sent to was very helpful after I called them since I felt that no one was making process on straightening it out. It took less than 20 minutes once I called. They found the account the money was accidentally sent to, sent the poor woman an appology letter, and transfered the money to my account. Plus, since it should have been in my account 3 weeks earlier, its lateness caused my account to incur late fees and other finance charges. The bank refunded those. I wrote the original bank an e-mail requesting that they refund their finance fee for the balance transfer since they sent an incorrect account number that resulted in issues with my paying bills and other unnecessary difficulties — in the middle of all of that and trying to figure out how to refinance that timeshare loan, on Wednesday, the same very sad day I learned Senator Kenedy had passed away, I received the extra bad news that my 1995 Jeep Cherokee Sport will not pass the state inspection due to the rather large rust hole underneath — you can reach in and touch the passenger-side carpet — and multiple oil leaks from the engine and three must-be-replaced tires; they actually stoped inspecting the Jeep there. The blower that powers the vent/AC also has stopped working.

Basically, the money I would have to put into repairing it enough to pass inspection would be better put into a used car or a new car. Of course, it would have been better to have had this news a few weeks ago when Cash for Clunkers was going on. It would also be better if I could afford to have money for a car and if I hadn’t bought that timeshare.

So, I’ve been stressed and obsessed and I went the way of cheesy Italian and chocolate puddingy deserts. What I learned from the experience is that I need to learn how to make vegan versions of Calazones, cheesy Eggplant Parm over Ziti, and Chocolate soy pudding — I’ve never had good luck making pudding with soy milk as it never thickens for me.

So, this weekend, in an effort to reclaim my budget and learn to make some comfort food, I decided to try this Mac and Cheese recipe I found at VegWeb.com. It promotes itself as the best in the world and it seems quite popular so it seemed like a safe bet.

Recipe: Best Vegan Mac and Cheese (Tweaked)

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups of plain soy milk

1 cup of water

1/3 cup of tamari or soy sauce

1 1/2 cup of nutritional yeast — (next time I will use half or less)

1 tablespoon paprika

1 tablespoon garlic powder

1 tablespoon salt

1 block of extra-firm (not silken) tofu, pressed and drained

1 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1 1/2 lbs of elbows pasta

1 dollop of mustard (optional)

Instructions

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Boil water in a big pot for the pasta.

Mix all ingredients sans pasta in a blender.

Once pasta is cooked, drain, and put it in the baking pan pour the “cheese sauce” over the pasta.

Bake until the top of the pasta looks slightly browned and crispy about 15 minutes but not too crispy.

Diet type: Vegan

Diet (other): Reduced fat

Number of servings (yield): 12

Meal type: dinner

Culinary tradition: USA (Traditional)

My rating: 3.5 stars

Recipe originally by beep_i_am_a_robot on VegWeb.com.
Microformatting by hRecipe.

I increased the tofu to a full block from 1/4-th because I thought it would be creamier and also the “cheese sause” looked too brown to be appealing. I accidentally left out the mustard but I think I only have Creole mustard anyway and that might have been the wrong flavor to add. I don’t think I’m a fan of Nutritional Yeast flavor. The finished recipe had the right texture but it didn’t taste right. I finally decided it tasted too much like the Nutritional Yeast; it was overpowering. Next time I’ll try only putting half in to see how that works.

The original author wasn’t able to say how many servings it made. She described it as “a lot”. I baked it in the rectangular bottom part of my Pampered Chef roaster. I think it’s equivalent of a 9×13″ but it filled up two large Tupperware containers with lids that expand. I called my mother to get ideas on how to “dress it up” to turn it into two casseroles so I’m not eating the same Mac & Cheese all week.

I will say that I mixed in some Tofutti Sour Cream with a bowl of the leftovers this morning for brunch and warmed it up and that really covered the Nutritional Yeast flavor. I highly recommend that.

So there’s hope for comfort food yet.