Dueling Blog Posts!!! Whole Wheat Shells with Cashew Cheese

So I'm competitive by nature.  It is just in me.  In talking with Matt about being a guest blogger, I got the idea to post a rebuttal to his guest post.  Since we are on separate coasts, we can't actually taste each other's dishes to figure out which we prefer...so this is more just for fun, and to give you all another take on a dish.  This will hopefully be a recurring feature, but it won't be for every one of his posts and he won't always know its happening.  Sometimes I like to scheme.

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Ha.  Cashew Cheese. Weird. Who the hell thinks of these things? Turns out, vegans. So Matt, the kid who doesn't like cheese, was making macaroni and cheese for our dueling blog post. The natural thing, being the kid from Granville, (famous for cheese, no seriously) was to make something vegan.

This recipe appears unapproachable. It's something completely new and alien, includes techniques that I've never seen done before, and I have never tasted the end result. It has tons of steps, strange ingredients that are probably expensive, and seems to be really trying to impersonate something non-vegan. I made one other recipe like this since I converted to vegetarianism, a vegan lasagna, and to my utter shock, it turned out awesome.  The shells and cheese that I made weren't macaroni and cheese, it just had similar qualities and looked like macaroni and cheese. It tasted as good as macaroni and cheese, but entirely different.


A word on agar.  See comment above re: strange and expensive.  Agar is seaweed, but acts as a thickening agent when boiled.  Its expensive, but it has a great recipe suggestion on the back for meat jelly!  Delish!  One ounce set me back $8 from whole foods, but good cheese is as expensive, right?  So that's how I justified it.  I found the incredibly small packet with the asian noodles and seaweed in Whole Foods' Asian section.  


I made the cheese over the weekend, knowing that it would soften the blow of prep time during the week.  You can make the cheese ahead following the recipe below, just reserve 1 cup of soy milk from the recipe. Refrigerate the cheese for up to 5 or so days.  To reheat, break into small pieces and add the cup of soy milk.  Over medium heat, heat in sauce pan until melted through.  Add more soy milk if you want to thin it out.

Whole Wheat Shells with Cashew Cheese 
2 3/4 cups plain soy milk
1 cup cashews (unsalted, raw)
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 tbs yellow miso
2 tbs kosher salt
1 tbs fresh lemon juice
1 tbs onion powder
1 oz agar flakes
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

1 box whole wheat pasta shells

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Finely grind the cashews in a food processsor.  Add nutritional yeast, salt, onion powder, tumeric, and cayenne.  Pulse to combine.  
3. Over medium high heat, combine soy milk, oil, and agar in a medium saucepan.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium low.  Bring a large pot with salted water to boil for the shells. Cover the saucepan and allow the mixture to just about simmer.  Stir frequently.  Allow to cook for about 12-15 minutes, or until you can no longer see the agar flakes. Careful to not burn the mixture. 
4. Meanwhile, cook the pasta until just slightly undercooked.  Reserve 3/4 of the water to mix with the cheese.
5. While the food processor is running, pour the hot soy milk mixture through the feed tube slowly into the cashew mixture.  Allow the food processor to run for about two minutes and check to see the consistency.  It should be a tiny bit thicker than melted cheese (you are going to add a little water to it in a bit).  If you want to thin it out you can slowly add soy milk to the running processor.
6. Combine the pasta and cheese.  Add reserved pasta water until mixture has cheesy consistency.  Top with panko topping (see below), place in 350 oven for 20 minutes, or until the topping has browned and the pasta is tender. 

Panko Topping

1 cup panko breadcrumbs

1 tbs cayenne pepper

1 tbs paprika

1 onion, finely diced

1 clove of garlic, finely chopped

2 tbs extra virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

1. In a large skillet, combine olive oil, onion, and garlic. Saute over medium heat until onion is translucent. 
2. Add spices and panko breadcrumbs.  Allow the bread crumbs to toast in the pan for a few minutes, stirring occasionally.

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