BBQ Tofu With Vegan Mac and Cheese and Lima Beans.

We’re safely out of Pantry Cleanout Week now – though it was a ton of fun! – and as a result my fridge, freezer, and cupboards are now once again teeming with new items.  Tonight, since I knew I had a little extra time on my hands with the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, I decided to put my restocked pantry to good use.

This morning, I sliced a block of tofu into eight slices and put them into two ziptop bags, and then doused them all with a bottle of barbecue sauce and put the bags into the refrigerator to marinate all day.  Once I got home from an afternoon of birdwatching, I pulled them back out and placed them onto a sheet of parchment paper, which was in turn placed on top of a baking sheet.  From there, I baked them the way I baked last week’s tofu – at 350 for one hour, flipping the slices over after every 20 minutes.

Next, it was time to get the vegan mac and cheese together!

I’ve never actually made vegan mac and cheese from scratch, but I’ve been itching to give it a try.  Tonight seemed as good a night as any!  So I pulled out my trusty Soul Vegetarian Cookbook, home to many of my very favorite recipes (and purchased from one of my very favorite restaurants), and got to work.  I won’t copy the recipe here, since my friends at Soul Veg do have a business to run, but suffice it to say, as the macaroni boiled I whipped up a sauce in my blender – almond milk, tahini, nutritional yeast, and tofu, just to name a few ingredients!  Once the macaroni was ready, I mixed the sauce with the pasta and placed the mixture in a casserole dish.  Twenty minutes at 350 and it, too, was ready to roll!

While everything baked for that last 20 minutes, I opened up a can of lima beans and heated them along with some Cajun seasoning (because why not?).  The beans were well-heated by the time everything else came out of the oven, and we sat down to a hearty, filling, and very tasty dinner!  (If I do say so myself.)

The vegan mac and cheese was the nicest surprise.  Sometimes, it doesn’t take much to screw up the veganizing of a kitchen classic, but this turned out just great.  And we’ve got plenty left for tomorrow’s lunch – a sweet surprise, indeed!

:)