Comfort food

[Ragnar]

As a newly vegan convert I'm now poorly and all I want is a proper decent macaroni cheese...what do people do for comfort food??

Have you tried the vegan replacements? You can make a cheese sauce out of vegan cheese.

I buy the Swedish glacé ice cream which is nice and use Plenish cashew milk which is lovely and just like dairy milk.

There’s loads more vegan products around now so it’s just a case of trying different stuff.

Ben & Jerry’s new vegan ice creams are working well for my sore throat at the moment :)

I’ve also made a vegan mac & cheese quite a few times, not quite settled on my favourite way yet but there are tonnes of vegan ‘cheesy’ sauce recipes around.

My easy go-to comfort dinner is Linda McCartney sausages with mash. I like making a spicy tomato & lentil soup as well, or lentil/mushroom bolognese sauce with pasta or add beans and spices for a chilli. Simple things like peanut butter or baked beans on toast are already vegan as well.

I have tried making a few cheese sauces from cashews or nutritional yeast and bought a couple one from tesco I think but they have been pretty grim so far.

Where have you got the new vegan Ben and Jerry's from? That sounds good

Try No Moo melty, I’m a cheese addict and this stuff is delicious, and melts down so smoothly and makes THE BEST cheese sauce for macaroni cheese.

Lentil dal is another super comforting recipe, there’s a good recipe on the Guardian for it.

I had the most amazing comfort (non cheesy) macaroni last night - it was actually a non-vegan recipe that I veganisws.

3 onions, chop and fry in about 4tbsps of Marge with 1tbsp brown sugar added. When super soft gradually add a cup of red wine a wee bit at a time

Once wine all evaporated add punnet of mushrooms and garlic to taste. Cook till mushrooms soft .

Add roughly 6-7 cups weak veg stock, and a 500g packet of macaroni and cook until cooked (stir occasionally as macaroni is a bugger for sticking and clumping)

Once it's cooked stir through an entire block of Violife pizza cheese, grated. (It's meant to have cream too, but already pretty rich)

It was lush!

Oh you guys thanks for those suggestions, I will get my hubby on it! :)

Vegan Ben and Kerry's is in tesco

Ben & Jerry’s are in Tesco! I got chocolate fudge brownie and peanut butter cookie. I’ll tbink I’ll have to get another tub of each though to double check which is my favourite.

I've seen a vegan packet of macaroni cheese- new in Tesco.

Do you have instagram? There are some really good vegan accounts to follow on there, with lots of comfort food.

If you google avocado chocolate mousse there is a recipe that you basically blend avocado honey Cocoa powder and almond milk I think it is and you get a rich silky chocolate mousse.

A simple pumpkin soup is lovely .Make some holes in the pumpkin shove it in the oven at 180C for approx 1hour, Till a knife goes in fairly easily (no need to chop or peel it). While it's cooking gently fry onions and garlic in olive oil in a large solid saucepan, then add stock ( i use tamari and water) peel and slice the pumpkin small and add to the soup. Then liquidise with a hand held blender. DONE! it's nice and comforting with toast or crackers.

This is the best vegan cheese I have found. It makes amazing cheese sauce:
www.rawfoodrosies.com/shop/

They are all nice but the baby bleu is amazing and melts down deliciously. I was never a big fan of Stilton but it's so much tastier. The Brie is also gorgeous

Have you tried the Amy's rice mac n cheese? Personally it's a bit of a guilty pleasure for me!

My vegan comfort food is sausages (Linda McCartney) & mash with lots of onion gravy.

Coconut yoghurt. It's the best.

Also, if you get Julie Montagu's books from Amazon, her recipes are amazing. She doesn't classify herself as vegan, but her recipes mostly are (i.e. no diary/meat).

I've converted my carnivore DH to her recipes which is a miracle. (No, I'm not her mum )

I Make my own vegan mac n' cheese for gd she LOVES it! You just use rice pasta \she's GF too as am I , soya milk white sauce, with rice flour ,olive oil and I put marmite/yeast extract in it. Then cover with crunchy breadcrumbs and more yeast extract. Sometimes grated vegan cheese for the topping.