Easy Vegan Mac n Cheese with Daiya!

I've tried to make vegan macaroni and cheese a couple of times, and somehow the texture was never quite right. Well, my dear reader, that is no longer the case. I've officially managed to muster up an easy mac n cheese recipe with Daiya that tastes absoultely yummy. (in fact, I've had it twice this week already, and I haven't really been feeling like pasta lately) I am not responsible for any drool that might fall on your keyboard so without further ado, here is the recipe...

Serving Portion: just for 1, but it's quite small.

Ingredients
1/2 cup of elbow macaroni (I used vegetable elbow mac, that's why you see all the strange colours)
1/3 cup of Daiya Cheddar cheese
1 tablespoon of nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon of vegan margarine
a sprinkle of black pepper
a pinch of paprika

Directions

1. Boil the pasta just a little less longer than instructions, al dente. You want it to be cooked, but a bit hard so that it won't mush up when you bake it.

2. Mix all the ingredients in a heat proof glass bowl (like a pyrex dish) and place it over a steaming pot of water, a la double boiler method. It's best the bowl does not actually touch the water because it could burn the cheese rather than melt it, so use a bigger bowl if you have to.

3. Once the cheese sauce is coming together, drain the pasta and add it to the pyrex dish and mix the pasta all around so the cheese sauce coats it. Pop in a toaster oven or regular oven at 300 Farenheit for 5-10 minutes max depending on your personal preference.

Smell it, eat it, lick it. It's that good.

Savoury Mozarella Pancake Puffs

Pancake puff pans are quite an amazing thing. Aside from making sweet treats which originated as the Dutch dessert Aebleskiver, there is a savoury Japanese version of this dish called Takoyaki.

What does this have to do with the Savoury Mozarella Pancake Puffs? Nothing really, except I found that tidbit of history slightly amusing. The photo in this recipe post is actually a Frankenstein puff in which I poured some batter first, spooned some marinara sauce and Daiya mozza and then more batter to fill up the well.

Get ready for some delicious snacking!


Ingredients 
 
1 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup Daiya Mozzarella cheese
1 cup water
1 tablespoon vegetable oil


Yield: approx 12 pancake puffs

Directions

1. Mix dry ingredients in one bowl with the Daiya Mozarella cheese. Mix the water and oil in another bowl and whisk well. Slowly mix in the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until you reach batter consistency.


2. Heat up your pancake puff pan to a LOW-MED temperature. This allows the pancake puffs to be cooked without burning. Scoop or pour enough batter in one well to almost fill up the well to the brim. (It is easier to flip pancake puffs if they are larger.)

3. After a couple of minutes when they are cooked on one side (pale yellow-gold colour), flip them holding one stick on one side of the puff, and the other stick on the opposite side of the puff.

4. Wait another few minutes for the other side to cook, then remove puffs using the 2 sticks like chopsticks. They will be pale in colour, but do not fret, they will be cooked inside. If you would like a more golden colour, keep flipping them on each side until they reach desired colour.

5.  Serve with warm marinara sauce.