Macaroni and cashew “whatever you want to call it”

My kids call it Mama’s Mac.  So easy – no animal products – no oil!
You’ll need a pot to boil water and a blender. I use a Vitamix, but any blender will do. If you don’t have a high-speed blender you may want to soak your cashews for an hour before making this OR the easy peasy solution is to pour the hot ingredients over the cashews in the blender and let it sit for 10 minutes before blending.

Ingredients:

• Any pound of pasta you prefer (no egg or pasta with animal products)
• 1 medium potato, peeled (any potato will do, even sweet potatoes!)
• 1 large carrot
• 1/4 large onion
• 2-3 garlic cloves
• 1/2 cup cashews (I use raw pieces from Trader Joe’s)
• salt and pepper to taste- I highly recommend these, but up to you

Optional: (I put these in as optional because this is tasty either way, but it’s a good opportunity to experiment!)

• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1 tbsp nutritional yeast – you can buy this stuff everywhere now, just ask for it at the store, don’t be scared!
• 1/2 tsp turmeric powder

Method:

1. Cut up the potato, carrot, onion, and garlic into chunks. This takes little to no effort as the blender will do most of the work for you. Don’t worry about teeny tiny dicing and anything super fancy.
2. Put those bad boys into a sautée pan (any “deepish” pot will do) and cover with water.
3. Boil the water and veggies for 15-20 minutes or until the carrots and potatoes are tender with a fork. (SAVE THE WATER – I repeat, DO NOT THROW AWAY THAT DELICIOUS STARCHY WATER!)
4. Once all the veggies are soft, grab your blender. Into the blender add 1/2 cup cashews, all the cooked veggies, optional spices of your choosing, and enough of the leftover water to provide a smooth consistency (usually a little more than 1 cup).
5. Now that you’ve got it blended up nice and creamy you can pour it over the cooked pasta or vegetables of your choice. We also use this same cashew sauce for nachos and all sorts of other things. It’s a staple in our house. Leftover sauce keeps well in the fridge for a week.

Alterna-tips:

1. If you’re not picky, peeling potatoes isn’t a must, but you’ll end up with little brown flecks
2. If you have a high speed blender you don’t need to peel the garlic – it will liquify
3. Frozen peas cook right up if you add a cup to the pasta and sauce
4. Pour this over baked tortilla chips
5. Add salsa to make southern style queso for dipping
6. Add it as a condiment to oh, just about anything
7. Advanced: for a super gooey texture, blend in 1-2 tbsp of tapioca starch and then cook in a saucepan over high heat for 4-5 minutes or until thick (this is great for the nachos and queso)

Share this one with your friends – even picky kids have been known to eat Mama’s Mac! If you try it, let us know in the comments. We’d love to hear your customizations too!

Healthy food, healthy family-

Jen