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Veganizing “Friends”: Chandler’s “Righteous” Mac & Cheese

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PictureRighteous mac & cheese with some burnt Brussels sprouts

   If you know “Friends” (and I hope you do!), you know that Chandler hates, I mean HATES, Thanksgiving. His parents announced their divorce on Thanksgiving when he was nine years old, and he was so upset that he threw up all the traditional foods he had eaten. Subsequently, he refused to ever celebrate the holiday or eat ‘Thanksgiving-y’ foods. (If I recall correctly, he also started smoking at this point too. At age 9.)     
So, we learn through flashbacks that, during college, Ross brought his roommate Chandler home for several Thanksgivings. The first time, Monica offered to make him mac & cheese since he didn’t eat Thanksgiving food. When eating it, Chandler said, in an offhand way, “This is great, you should be a chef!” and Monica just excitedly said “Ok!” And as we know, she became a professional chef. It’s one of my favorite Fat Monica moments, though I love her allatimes.
     So, the following Thanksgiving, Chandler (having dropped his Flock of Seagulls look for a Miami Vice one) asked Monica if she’d again make him some of that “righteous mac & cheese”.
    So yay, we are making some righteous mac & cheese! And it’s not even Thanksgiving! (Mac & cheese is ideal for any occasion.) This is the dish that gave Monica her start as a chef! Soo important. This recipe is my usual weekly go-to, but I added a secret ingredient today – caramelized onions – to give it a richer, more autumn, more Thanksgiving-y taste.
You start by boiling carrots and potatoes. I got the idea from the famous VegNews recipe years ago, and since then I’ve adapted it into my own specialty. I usually do two pounds (!!) of each, like 7-8 small potatoes and 10 peeled and chopped carrots (not baby carrots, too sweet). Come on, you need lots of sauce! Then, you blend the vegetables with margarine, milk, nooch, cashews, mustard, lemon, salt and pepper, and sometimes soy sauce/tamari/miso if it needs to be saltier. Mix in your pasta, and voila! My favorite mac & cheese.
Picture

It’s like boiling fall
DIRECTIONS:

  1. Boil the carrots and potatoes until soft. Drain, then add them back into the pot.
  2. If you are going to make this special version, make your caramelized onions while the other veggies are boiling. Dice the onion small, fry it in a lot of oil on medium heat until all brown and crazy.
  3. With the pot on low heat, add the remaining ingredients.
  4. Blend with an immersion blender. Taste for seasonings, adjust to your liking.
  5. Make sure the sauce heats through before adding in your pasta.
INGREDIENTS:

  • 2 lbs. potatoes, diced (I think I used red bliss)
  • 2 lbs. carrots, peeled, chopped
  • special addition to this batch: 1/4C caramelized onions (1 small onion, olive oil)
  • 1/3C cashews
  • 1/3C nooch
  • 1/4C margarine
  • 1C unsweetened almond milk
  • 2t dijon mustard
  • juice of 1/2 a lemon
  • 1-2t soy/tamari/miso, to taste
  • salt & pepper, to taste
  • NB: It’s pretty much all to taste.
Picture

Caramelizing the onions, feeling the flow. These shrunk down to about 1/3 of what you see here when finished

PictureBlending the sauce!

    I make some version of this every week. I love it. The addition of caramelized onions added a warm depth of holiday flavor, but it made the dish a bit too sweet for me. However, just the natural sugars of plain cooked root vegetables, like sweet potatoes and butternut squash, are often too sweet for my tastes. So, if you are a normal person, you’ll probably really like this! You can always make it the regular way first, and then try blending the onions into a portion of it to see if you like it. Either way, it’s a delicious creamy pasta dish. It’s not as blue-box ‘cheesy’ as other recipes, but it’s my favorite. Let me know if you make it!

Questions for Giveaway points!!

  • What was the name of Ross & Chandler’s band in college?
  • We learn on a different Thanksgiving that Ross and Will (Brad Pitt) started a club in high school. Name that club! 
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