About a month ago I tried a relatively new restaurant in Oakland called Home Room. This hip place features a menu of many macaroni and cheeses with ad ins that make the combinations nearly endless! To my enjoyment they even have a vegan option! The service is wonderful the ambiance is just to die for and the food is decent. The brussel sprout appetizer was by far my favorite, but the fresh green salad had a simplicity that was refreshing without being boring. The mac and cheese was unfortunately not that great. It was good, with a soft cheesy flavor but the sauce was watery and the extra cost for mushrooms was way too much for the quality. Unfortunately the sauce was too thin and I am used to a more bold flavor for my not-cheese sauces. Still I would recommend it for an quick bit in Oakland.
Homeroom mac 'n cheese with peas and muchrooms
At this point I have to admit that I am biased against most mac 'n cheeses because I have had what is arguably the best mac 'n cheese. It was introduced to me by my friend Davey. Brussel sprouts still being too expensive I made a side of collard greens and a kale salad.
Lets get down to it and turn this:
into this!Mac ' Yeast
What I love about this recipe is how surprisingly simple it is to make with amazing flavor! This is one of those dishes that really proves anything can be transformed by a good sauce. As the name may suggest the basis of this 'cheese' sauce is nutritional yeast. In a blender place:
1 C soy milk
1 C water
1/3 C Soy sauce
1/2 C firm tofu
1 1/2 C nutritional yeast
1 Tbs paprika
1 Tbs powdered garlic
1 Tbs salt (or powdered vegetable bouillon)
1/2 C safflower oil (or your oil of preference)
This all get blended together until it is smooth and creamy. As with most sauces the importance is the balance between fat and flavor (where flavor is usually water based). The tofu in this acts as a great source of protein and more importantly as an emulsifier to keep the water and oil mixed. The proportions above are good for about 1 lb of pasta and you can adjust the thickness of the sauce by adding more or less water (though I tend to go for a thicker sauce). This sauce is going to be baked so don't make it to thick or you will burn!
I used 2 lbs of pasta and doubled the above proportions with one bag of frozen peas (aprox. 12 oz). It is ok to under cook the pasta a little, even preferred, because we are going to bake this whole mess at 350 F for 15-25 minutes. if you made your sauce to thin you can bake it longer to thicken it up but really this step is for mixing the flavors and giving a nice crust to the top layer of macaroni.
after oven .
The extra sprinkle of paprika and nutritional yeast is just for effect and hardly effects the flavor.
Kale Salad
I did some pretty simple side dishes with steamed broccoli and a kale salad. This kale salad was a mix of karinata kale and red Russian kale with shreds of carrots and golden beats. The dressing was an orange ginger vinaigrette and the sesame seeds were added in excess (just the way I like it). I have done kale salad a few times so feel free to look at old recipes. Again the secret is in the sauce, balancing acid with fat and flavor. Sometimes Kale makes this extra tricky because you want the acid to sit on the kale for 20- 30 minutes before you add the fat and flavor.
Steamed Broccoli
The broccoli was simply cut up and steamed but the secret to delicious broccoli is getting ti fresh as possible. the less time ti sits off the plant the sweeter it will be. If you can get a young broccoli and get ti picked fresh that day you probably dont need to steam it and could serve it raw with a spicy or savory dipping sauce where the natural sweetness of the broccoli balances out the flavors. I know you probably dont think of broccoli as being sweet but man it can be surprising!
Collard Greens
If you are trying to eat local and winter comes rolling round you best make friends with collard greens. The nice thing is that they are such a common treat for some sub cultures in the USA that figuring out how to cook them is not that hard. As you might suspect it is high heat with a good oil and some onions and garlic for the yum factor. Collards come in big broad leaves (we are talking a foot wide) that are easy to wash and prepare. Just cut out the stem (save them) and then slice the leaves into manageable strips. make sure you use 'too many' leaves as this is much like spinach and other dark greens you cook, they loose a lot of volume when you apply heat. It is common to blanch the leaves before cooking (dip them into boiling water fr a minute) as this cuts down on the bitterness and makes a more manageable volume. I prefer to use an acidic cooking stock to cut down the bitterness, typically lemon juice. By avoiding the water you get to hit the leaves with full heat of the skillet and it gives them a nice sauteed flavor that I always have trouble getting if I blanch first. Eat it up!
