Pasta with vegan cheese sauce

I’ve been using the same vegan cheese recipe for at least four or five years now. It’s very quick and easy to make, and I love using it in burritos and with tortilla chips. But I’ve never really enjoyed it with pasta – it’s much too thick and the flavor seems just an odd pairing with pasta. I’m always curious about finding a new creamy vegan cheese sauce to use with pasta, so when I saw Amber’s comment (hi Amber!) the other day about one of her favorite recipes on my Teese Cheese Review I knew I had to experiment.

One of the things that caught my attention first was the fact that it contains potatoes and carrots. All of the other ingredients I’ve seen in vegan cheese recipes, but never anything like vegetables. Of course, I realized right away that this could be a fantastic recipe for those of you who follow a gluten-free diet. My other recipe that I’ve relied on for years uses white flour to thicken it, but in this recipe potatoes help to thicken this up a little bit, but only just enough to be a creamy sauce.

Vegan Cheese Sauce
This is based on the VegYum Mac & Cheeze recipe posted on VeganYumYum

• 1 package vegan and/or gluten-free pasta
• 1 cup potatoes, peeled and finely chopped
• 1/4 cup carrots, peeled and finely chopped
• 1 cup water
• 1/3 cup raw cashews
• 1 tablespoon miso (can omit if gluten-free, or use a clearly labeled gluten-free miso)
• 1 tablespoon tahini
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice or 1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon dijon mustard
• 1/3 cup vegan butter (and gluten-free if necessary)
• 1/3 cup nutritional yeast
• 1 to 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
• Black pepper to taste

Prepare your pasta according to package directions.

Chop your potatoes and carrots and cover them with 1 cup water (or a little more if needed), bring to a boil, then cover and turn down to low heat and allow to simmer for about 15 or 20 minutes, or until they are tender.

Cooking potatoes and carrots

Meanwhile, in a blender, proceed to add your remaining ingredients: cashews, miso, tahini, lemon juice, mustard, vegan butter, nutritional yeast, salt and black pepper.

Putting ingredients for vegan cheese sauce in blender

Once the potatoes and carrots are done cooking, add both the vegetables and their water to the blender.

Adding the cooked potatoes and carrots

Cover and blend until very smooth, about five minutes. You want to be sure that it’s not grainy, so you may want to check about halfway through or after the five minutes is up to see how smooth it is.

Vegan cheese sauce

It should be warm enough to go ahead and serve with your pasta, but if not, you can heat it up on the stove for a few minutes while constantly stirring. Then serve!

Pasta with vegan cheese sauce

This turned out pretty well, although it was a little bit of an unusual flavor and seemed to be a little salty. I may experiment in the future and reduce the amount of tahini and salt, or increase the potatoes a little bit. I also think it might be a little more balanced if peas or another vegetable were mixed into the sauce.

What is your favorite vegan cheese sauce – or have you found one yet?

Learn more about Vegan MoFo.

Creamy Broccoli Cheese Soup

One reason why we chose to move away from New York is because of the harsh winters. It’s a geographic region of extremes, and January and February are the absolute coldest, sometimes dipping down into the negative digits. Because it’s on the water, the wind can be bone-chilling especially for those who travel by foot and public transit. Eight years of that and we had definitely had more than enough.

So far the winter in Washington has been amazing. While we have had the constant rain and few sunny days, it has stayed pretty much in the 40s and 50s which has felt always like we’re on the cusp of spring. (This morning I even woke to the sound of birds chirping – it felt very April-ish.) Still, we have days where a nice cup of tea and a warm bowl of soup is much needed.

Lately I have taken to making a huge pot of soup to last us for a few days or a week, and have tried to experiment a little with recipes to mix it up. One soup I’ve made only twice is broccoli cheese soup, but I am pretty impressed with the results so far. I did something different the second time around, and that was to base the soup off of the vegan cheese recipe I shared with you a few months ago. It turned out really well, but I’d still change one or two things which I’ll note in the recipe below.

Vegan Broccoli Cheese Soup
Note: You can probably make this gluten free by substituting the flour with 2 or 3 tablespoons of corn starch or another similar thickener.

• 3 or 4 small heads broccoli, chopped and with most of the stems removed
• 1 large onion, peeled and chopped
• 1 cup nutritional yeast
• 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup unbleached flour
• 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon dried yellow mustard powder
• 8 cups water
• 5 tablespoons vegan butter

Prepare your broccoli, then steam it for about 15 minutes. It will not have enough time to cook in the soup itself, so it needs to be cooked separately. Just be sure to not over-steam it.

Chopping broccoli

Tip: Also steam the onion with your broccoli, or at least for about 10 minutes. I did not do this and I wish I had.

In a large soup pot (which will need to be at least 3 or 4 quarts), mix all of your dry ingredients together, then whisk in the water until the dry and the wet have been well mixed. Add in the vegan butter and allow it to melt as the soup cooks.

Mixing the dry and wet ingredients

Turn on the heat to about medium high and stir constantly. It will take several minutes to thicken, but if you do not stir the soup it will burn on the bottom and not thicken evenly.

Make sure to stir constantly

At about this point I added in the raw onion. Unfortunately the soup thickened so fast that the onion wasn’t as well cooked as I would have liked. I will most definitely steam it next time along with the broccoli.

Add in the onion after it has been steamed

As soon as the soup thickens up to a consistency that you like, take the soup off the heat and stir in the steamed broccoli (and onion if you also steamed it). You can serve immediately, or you can store it and serve it later. It will thicken up more in your refrigerator, however as you heat it up again, it will return to a more liquid state.

Adding the broccoli to the soup

We really enjoyed this soup – it was hearty, creamy and had just the right amount of salt. We were both pretty impressed with this version. If you’re like me and you don’t care much for broccoli (I actually really like broccoli made in this way), I imagine that you could also make this with asparagus or cauliflower instead and also have a very nice end result.

Do you enjoy soup? What is your favorite?

Creamy broccoli cheese soup

Vegan Cheese

When we first became vegan, the one thing that we both missed very much was cheese. We tried many of the fake cheese products out there – the soy cheeses and rice cheeses – and were very disappointed and disheartened every time. I was experimenting a lot with new recipes then, because I guess you could say I was still trying to find my vegan groove, and I came across a recipe for a nacho cheese-like cheese that I decided to try. This has been our cheese of choice ever since, and even though it tastes hardly anything like cheese (when I describe it I say the flavor is “cheese-esque” or reminds one of the memory of cheese), it really has made up for the absence of real cheese in our lives.

We dip tortilla chips in this cheese, add this to burritos and wraps and my husband likes adding it to vegan pizza. This is also a great base to “cheesy” soups, like broccoli cheese soup. You can probably think of more ideas of how to use this once you’ve tried it out for yourself.

Tip: Unless you’re making this for the first time, I’d recommend making a double batch of this recipe.

Vegan Cheese
Via VegWeb.com

• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup unbleached flour
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/8 teaspoon dried yellow mustard powder
• 1 cup water
• 1 1/2 tablespoon vegan butter

First, mix the dry ingredients together in a medium sized saucepan.

Mixing dry ingredients together for vegan cheese

Add the water and mix well, then add the vegan butter.

Mixing the water with the dry ingredients

Put the pan on the stove, and turn on the heat to medium to medium-high and whisk continuously. As soon as  you start to notice it getting thick (and it gets thick pretty fast), you may want to switch to a spoon to stir. Turn off the heat soon thereafter.

Whisking the vegan cheese

My husband likes to substitute the vegan butter with imitation butter extract, and we both like to add hot sauce to our individual servings after it has finished cooking. Some people enjoy mixing in salsa, as well, to give it an extra kick for Mexican-themed food.

Vegan Cheese

Have you found a good vegan substitute for cheese?

Yum. Vegan Cheese.

~~~

Nutritional Yeast Here are some other ways you can incorporate nutritional yeast into your diet: Sprinkle it on vegan buttered toast – I do this quite frequently Sprinkle it on a sandwich Add it to soup or salad

Not all vegans eat the same things, but just like everybody else, we’ve got our own common meat and potatoes items. One thing that eventually winds up on a vegan’s plate is tofu scramble (or scrambled tofu, depending upon your preference), and we vegans are known for making it a variety of ways. Even my husband and I make it two different ways, but I’ll share my preferred method here.

Tofu Scramble
Since I don’t follow a recipe when I make Tofu Scramble, this recipe is only an approximation, and should be used more as a rough guide (although feel free to follow exactly, too).

• 1 onion, chopped
• 2-4 garlic cloves, chopped
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 package extra firm tofu, drained
• 2 teaspoons chicken or beef style seasoning I use McKay’s
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
• 1/2 to 1 teaspoon spice blend of your choice I use McCormick’s Smoky Sweet Pepper Blend

Chop up a medium to large onion.

After slicing off the ends of the cloves of garlic, slice down the middle and remove the center stem. This part can taste a little bitter, so it is sometimes best to remove it, although it’s no problem if you leave it in. Chop the garlic.

Heat the oil in a large skillet, and add the onion and garlic and saute over medium heat.

One package of tofu should suffice for two people, but if you are feeding more people you can do more (and you may want to increase the other ingredients as well to make sure the dish is still full of flavor).

Once the onions and garlic have sauteed for a few minutes, push them to one side of the pan and then add the block of tofu to the bare side of the pan.

Grab a potato masher and begin mashing the tofu starting on one edge and working your way through the entire block.

Before you incorporate the onions and garlic with the mashed tofu, first add the spices to the tofu. I usually start off with the chicken or beef style seasoning.

Then the nutritional yeast – you can add more or less depending upon your preference; not everyone likes nutritional yeast.

Finally I just sprinkle the pepper spice until I think I’ve added enough.

Mix everything together now and let it saute without stirring for a couple of minutes.

After a couple of minutes, the tofu should start browning.

It’s up to you how long you let it brown. I usually stir, then let it sit for a couple of minutes, stir again and let it sit – I do this for probably up to six to eight minutes.

Once it’s done it will have a nice texture that reminds me a little bit of hearty scrambled eggs (sorry – not of the taste, though).

Aside for making it differently, my husband and I usually eat it two different ways, too. He normally eats his on toast with ketchup, vegenaise, and sometimes hot sauce.

I tend to have my tofu scramble on it’s own, and then a slice of toast and jam (in this case marmalade!).

Tofu scramble is such a versatile recipe. We sometimes make it with sliced mushrooms, green and/or black olives, and other spices. It’s great for breakfast burritos or pita sandwiches, too. Really, you can eat it much the same way as you would scrambled eggs. That’s kind of the point, I think, for vegans.

How do you make yours? And do you eat yours any differently than we do?

Thanksgiving can be a problematic holiday for vegans, especially when they are invited over to non-vegan or non-vegetarian homes. The hosts usually mean well, but often there’s not much to be had for vegans at a typical Thanksgiving gathering. When I was young I was lucky that my whole family, aside from a few in the minority, were vegetarian. That included grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts and cousins. The minority didn’t seem to mind because they either had also been raised vegetarian or they chose to keep silent (maybe not – I can’t remember too many early Thanksgivings that revolved around talk of missed turkey).

These days, now that vegetarianism, and to a certain extent, veganism, is more widely understood and accepted, there is more sensitivity involved. Still, it’s challenging for vegans to have a meal sans milk and cheese. This is where I am going to give a minor confession.

I am not a strict vegan. I will eat dairy and eggs if my hosts haven’t considered that I may not eat those things. The only line I refuse to cross is the meat line, mainly because I have never had meat be a part of my diet (yes, never), so to be honest – meat kind of weirds me out as a food group.

With that said, not all vegans eat the same or follow the same set of unwritten rules. Even so, I am going to share one thing with vegans and one thing with meat-lovers.

Vegans: If you’re asked to bring something to a holiday meal, consider these two recipes. They’ve got creaminess and heartiness written all over them! Impress those meat-lovers with your culinary skills, and have them begging for you to come back next year. They might even ask you where you got the recipe. (Send ‘em on over – I don’t mind!)

Meat-lovers: If you have asked a vegan or vegetarian over for a holiday meal, but have no idea what to fix, consider trying to make something that they can eat, and make these two recipes. Just because these are vegan recipes doesn’t mean they are weird or hard. It doesn’t matter if they don’t wind up being the hit of the meal – the fact that you went to any trouble at all to make your veggie guests comfortable is a wonderful gesture and one to be appreciated. They might even ask you where you got the recipe. (Send ‘em on over – I don’t mind!)

I feel like I’m repeating myself…

Vegan Sausage Stuffing

• 1 package Tofurky Kielbasa (or another vegan meat alternative), diced or ground up
• 2 – 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 4 – 6 stalks celery, chopped
• 2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped
• 3 teaspoons Italian season blend
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 pound of bread, cubed (I used an organic seven-grain bread, but you could use most any kind and have it turn out well)
• 16 ounces vegetable broth, or chicken broth substitute
• Cooking spray or olive oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Dice or grind up the Tofurky, and then saute in a large non-stick frying pan for about five minutes in 2 – 3 tablespoons olive oil.

Add the chopped onion and celery, and saute for another three minutes.

Stir in parsley, Italian seasoning, salt and black pepper. Transfer the vegan sausage mixture to a large bowl. Add the cubed bread and broth and stir together well.

Spoon stuffing into a large baking dish coated with cooking spray or olive oil.

Cover and bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 minutes. Uncover, then bake an additional 20 minutes or until golden brown.

Creamy Mushroom Gravy
This versatile recipe is known as Cashew Gravy on VegWeb.

Two quick notes:

1. If you make this gravy to go along with the above stuffing recipe, I would recommend doubling or tripling this gravy recipe to ensure you have enough – I’d lean more toward tripling… But you may want to experiment first to see if you even like this gravy (personally, we love it in our household).
2. If you don’t want to use a creamy gravy, I’d highly recommend the gravy I made last year which I thought turned out really well.

• 1 package mushrooms, sliced (I’ve used your standard mushrooms in this recipe here, but I’d also recommend baby bellas)
• 2 cups hot water
• 1/2 cup cashews, rinsed
• 2 tablespoons Braggs Liquid Aminos (a soy sauce substitute) or low sodium soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 2 teaspoons onion powder
• 2 teaspoons nutritional food yeast (can usually be found in the supplements section of your grocery store)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Set aside one cup of hot water. Put everything else except for the mushrooms in a blender and blend very well, about five minutes.

Add second cup of water. Pour into a pan, and stir constantly (preferably with a whisk) on medium to high heat until desired thickness. It may take a few minutes to get it thick, but as soon as it starts to thicken up watch it closely to make sure it doesn’t over-thicken, then turn off the stove.

Saute sliced mushrooms in a couple of tablespoons of water.

Saute the mushrooms until tender.

Stir the mushrooms into the gravy, and serve with the stuffing.

The stuffing turned out well, and it tasted really hearty. I think that part of it had to do with the seven-grain bread I used. That kind of bread always has a little extra oomph, but I’m sure you can get away with basic bread and have it turn out just as well (meat-lovers: make sure you read the label for dairy or eggs if you’re buying bread).

I really liked pairing the stuffing with a creamy gravy. I actually experimented with a non-creamy recipe a few weeks ago, but I wound up really disliking it, so I chose to share this gravy instead. I think that this gravy recipe does a good job of balancing the spices and stronger flavors in the stuffing. I’ll repeat what I said above in the recipe, but if you make the stuffing recipe exactly as it’s listed above, I’d recommend doubling or tripling the mushroom gravy recipe to ensure that there’s enough.

P.S. These recipes were requested by a reader (Hi Rachel!) a few weeks ago. If there’s anything you’re interested in seeing me try (and hopefully not fail!) send me a message and I’ll see what I can do. I would have had this one to you guys sooner, but life’s become a zoo the last few weeks! Should calm down after the New Year, though!

P.P.S. Yes, I’m still working on the redesign. Because of the zoo, though, it’s taken a back seat for the moment.

We rarely buy a loaf of bread. Sometimes we do, and we’ll buy variations of bread – like hot dog buns or bagels. But your standard loaf of bread is typically made at home. It’s cheaper, very easy, and tastes just as good if not better. It’s also nice to control and know exactly what is going into our bread.

But back to the easy part. We have a bread machine. That’s why we can get away with making it all the time. Sure, that no-knead bread is an easy substitute, but if you want to throw all of your ingredients in and press the start button, and then a few hours later discover that you have a loaf of bread – well, that’s the easiest type of homemade bread you can get.

This loaf of bread is somewhere in between the easier and easy.

I’ve been making almond milk nearly every weekend, and have wound up with more almond meal than I know what to do with. I decided to try putting it into bread, and what a smart thing to do. Although I can’t tell you that I really taste the almond meal, it does seem to give it an added moistness and softness that wouldn’t necessarily be there otherwise.

Almond Meal Bread

• 1 1/2 cups warm water
• 4 cups white or whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup almond meal (moist or dry should both work fine)
• 2 1/2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast (optional if you don’t have)
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 tablespoons vegan butter
• 1 tablespoon fast acting yeast

Put all of your ingredients into a bread machine pan in the order of listed ingredients. (Make sure the paddle is already in place – I’ve forgotten to do this once or twice, but thankfully not before putting it into the machine. Still – it’s messy).

Pour your water in first.

I used all whole wheat flour next.

Then I put in about one half cup of almond meal. As you can see, I am using fresh almond meal, but I think that dry would probably work fine.

Put in your salt, sugar, and nutritional yeast.

I have to tell you about nutritional yeast at some point. It’s the yellow stuff in this picture. We use it all the time, and it is so tasty. I’ll share a “cheese” recipe with you soon.

Next put in your vegan butter. It doesn’t matter if it is softened or not because the machine will wind up softening it anyway.

Finally put your yeast in last. Our yeast is a little old so I usually put in extra just in case. It still works!

Once you have all of your ingredients in the pan, put it into the machine (unless you have to have your pan in place already).

Set your bread machine to the dough cycle and let it mix. We sometimes have to scrape the sides of the pan while it’s mixing so that it will grab all of the ingredients.

Once it is done, take the pan out of the machine. It should have risen quite a bit so far.

Grease a cookie sheet or some other pan you plan to bake your bread in, and shape your dough as you wish on the pan. Since I am using just a regular cookie sheet I formed mine into a ball.

Cover it with a towel and allow the dough to rise for about half an hour (30 minutes). A few minutes before it has completely risen turn on the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

You can get creative and cut a design into the bread, or just leave it untouched.

Bake the bread at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 30 minutes, but you may want to do it for slightly less depending on how your oven operates.

Once it is done allow it to cool, then slice and serve.

This turned out really well, although I have to say that it wound up a little flat so the slices were long and short. The taste was still good, and the bread was moist.

Unless you have any suggestions on how I can remedy the flatness of the bread, I am thinking that I may actually buy loaf pans. I also vaguely remember my grandmother using old metal cans (i.e. from buying peaches at the store). Have any of you done that? Is that safe?

The dinner is delicious, but I pick at my food because at court there is always someone watching you, and I don’t want to seem greedy. Our table faces the front of the hall, so it is natural that I look up to see the king at his dinner. In his rich clothes and great collar of gold you might mistake him for one of the old pictures over an altar; I mean, a picture of God. He is so grand and so broad and so weighted with gold and jewels, he sparkles like an old treasure mountain. There is a cloth of gold spread over his great chair, with embroidered curtains hanging down on either side, and every dish is served to him by a servant on his knees. Even the server who offers him a golden bowl to dip his fingers and wipe his hands does so on bended knee. There is another server altogether to hand him the linen cloth. They bow their heads as well when they kneel to him, as if he were of such unearthly importance that they cannot meet his eyes.

-The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory

Reading a novel by Philippa Gregory is like eating chocolate. It’s so smooth, rich, and delicious that I find myself disappointed every time I finish one of her books. My only consolation is that I still have yet to read all of them – and hopefully she’ll never stop writing.

Historical novels need to be written well for me, and hers meet my expectations. This one centers around Henry VIII and three ladies in his court – you know, the one who had multiple wives and killed nearly every one of them. You can almost taste the fear of the women who surrounded him, and wonder how any of them wound up surviving.

I love potatoes. If I had to choose my favorite vegetable potatoes would probably have to be it. I have a lot of close seconds and thirds, but this root vegetable is so versatile and can take on so many flavors that I can’t imagine what else could top it. I mean, you can fry, boil, bake, roast, etc., etc. – what’s not to love?

One dish that I rarely make, just because it requires a little more effort than I am willing to give, is twice baked potatoes. They are worth the trouble if I do decide to make them. It’s like eating both mashed potatoes and baked potatoes at the same time…well, that’s probably because that’s pretty much what they are.

Twice Baked Potatoes

• 6 medium to large potatoes
• 1/2 cup nutritional yeast
• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 2 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp. mustard powder
• 2 cups water
• 3 Tbsp. butter
• 2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2-3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tsp. dried dill

Bake your potatoes whole in the oven for about an hour at 425 degrees Fahrenheit. At about 10 or 15 minutes until you take the potatoes out of the oven start preparing your other ingredients.

Now what you are going to do is create a cheese-like sauce. It doesn’t taste exactly like cheese, but it has a nice smoky, rich flavor which is a wonderful substitute. For someone who admittedly misses real cheese occasionally this is a good stand in for when I want something cheese-esque.

In a small pot put your nutritional yeast (this is what imparts the “cheesy” flavor), flour, salt, garlic powder, mustard powder, and water. Mix the ingredients together thoroughly, then add your butter. Now turn on the stove to medium heat. Stir the mixture at a pretty continuous amount. When you start to notice it thickening you can either stop now (it should still be fairly runny), but for the purposes of this recipe let it go for another 10-15 seconds while still stirring. Immediately turn off the stove, and if you’re really good take the pot away from the heat.

Sauté your onions and garlic in vegetable oil (or olive oil) for about five minutes. Don’t do too much longer if you still want a little crunch and stronger flavor when the twice baked potatoes are done.

Take the potatoes out of the oven and let them cool for a few minutes.

Cut each potato lengthwise, then scoop the meat out into a medium sized mixing bowl. Place all the potato shells back on the baking tray.

Mash the potato meat with a potato masher, then add 1-2 cups of the cheese sauce (use the rest in burritos or as a dip), the powdered dill, and the sautéed onions and garlic. Mix it all together well, taste a small amount, and adjust seasonings if necessary.

Now take a scoop of potato mixture and put it into one of the potato shells. Continue to do this until you have all of the shells filled and when you no longer have mixture left.

Put the potatoes back into the oven and cook for another 20 minutes or until the top is turning a little brown.

I know – it’s an event, and they’re gone so fast it almost (almost!) seems like it wasn’t worth it. But really, when you’re biting into them you (or rather I) keep hoping that there’s more than there really are.

Twice baked potatoes are so flexible. I found recipes that used mushrooms – that would have been great. I think you could do peppers (hot or sweet), chives, or broccoli. The spices could also be really flexible – paprika maybe, black pepper, rosemary, savory, etc. A good way to figure out what would work well is to think of what you like to eat with your potatoes. Those same spices and ingredients can jump into this recipe as well. So go experiment!

Our community supported agriculture (CSA) season ended just this last week, and we received both turnips and rutabagas for the first (and last) time. Since rutabagas are similar to turnips I also used them this time around. I think turnips tend to have a little bit more of a kick, though, so normally I would use only turnips. The mashed potatoes still turned out lovely and I really have no complaints.

This is a recipe that has become less of a recipe, so the following is more of an approximation of what I did.

Mashed Potatoes with Turnips/Rutabagas

• 5 – 7 large potatoes of your choosing, peeled and quartered
• 2 – 3 turnips and/or rutabagas, peeled and quartered
• 1/2 large onion, peeled and chopped
• 5 large cloves of garlic, peeled
• Salt
• 3 Tbsp. butter
• 3 – 5 Tbsp. mayonnaise or Vegenaise
• 1 Tbsp. lemon juice
• 1/2 – 1 tsp. cayenne pepper

Place the potatoes and turnips/rutabagas into a large pot and cover with water. After they have been boiling for a few minutes (5 – 10 minutes) add the onion and garlic cloves. Boil until the turnips are tender (note that you may want to start boiling the turnips first and then add the potatoes later as the turnips will take longer to soften).

Drain the potatoes, turnips, onions, and garlic cloves and pour into a large bowl (or back into the pan). Add salt (this will be to taste), butter, mayonnaise, lemon juice, and cayenne pepper. Either mash the ingredients together with a potato masher (more lumps) or get out a hand mixer and mix until it is at the consistency you prefer. Taste it to see if it has a good flavor and adjust the seasonings until it is how you want it.

Vegan Gravy
Taken from AllRecipes.com and originally called Vegetarian Gravy

• 1/2 cup vegetable oil (I did not use 1/2 cup – more like 1/4 cup)
• 1/3 cup chopped onion
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 4 tsp. nutritional yeast
• 4 Tbsp. light soy sauce (I used Bragg’s Liquid Aminos)
• 2 cups vegetable broth (I used 2 cups of water with 1 heaping Tbsp. McKay’s Chicken Seasoning)
• 1/2 tsp. dried sage (I didn’t use this because I don’t think I had any on hand.)
• 1/2 tsp. salt (I didn’t use this because the chicken seasoning and the liquid aminos were already providing enough sodium)
• 1/4 tsp. ground black pepper

Heat oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Saute onion and garlic until soft and translucent, about 5 minutes. Stir in flour, nutritional yeast, and soy sauce to form a smooth paste. Gradually whisk in the broth. Season with sage, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer, stirring constantly, until thickened.

The recipe said that once you reduce the heat you should stir it for another 8-10 minutes. My gravy did not take that long to thicken at all, so I would actually shorten that time to 2-3 minutes.

Both the mashed potatoes and the gravy turned out really well. When I was seasoning the potatoes and trying to achieve the perfect flavor I realized that I was trying to get it to taste more like potato salad. It didn’t taste exactly like potato salad, but even if it had I would have still loved it.

There are still some turnips and rutabagas sitting in my kitchen, so I am sure to make this recipe again in the very near future.

More Thanksgiving recipes to come in the next few days!