Grown-up Chreese Pasta
veggie spirals (or your favorite pasta)
cheddar style Chreese mix
1 head of broccoli
1 can of black beans
spices: cayenne, garlic, sea salt, ground pepper
The easiest way to make this pasta is to use your pot with a steamer insert. Trust me! It's so easy!
Start a few cups of water boiling in the pot. Cover.
While it's boiling wash and cut the broccoli head into small pieces, about twice the size of your pasta spirals.
Once the water starts boiling add 1/2-3/4 cup of dried veggie spirals to the water. Now lower the temperature to low or simmer. Promptly place your broccoli pieces into the steamer and set on top of the pasta while it cooks. Cover but be careful... while the temperature is still very hot in the pot it can overflow once you cover it with the steamer.
While the pasta and broccoli are cooking, open your can of black beans and rinse them well. Set aside.
Now make the cheddar chreese according to package: in a blender mix 3/4 cup of chreese mix and 1 1/2 cups of warm soy milk. Blend. Now add as much cayenne, garlic and freshly ground sea salt and pepper as you would like. Blend again. Voila! (We buy it in bulk from www.chreese.com - then you can make as much or little as you like.)
Cook the pasta and the broccoli - to your preference. Once they're done, simply place the broccoli and steamer into the sink and pour the pasta directly over it to drain.
Almost done! Put the broccoli, pasta, 1/2 can of black beans (or more if you like) back into the pot while it's warm. Pour the Chreese sauce over the pasta mix and stir. This should keep everything warm for a few minutes.
Serve with a great salad or some Simply Naked pita chips. It works as a great side dish to sandwiches or burgers or as the main dish for a meal as well.
Don't worry, any leftover sauce you have will keep very well in the fridge for a few days. Then you can experiment with other veggies or beans and make another quick salad!
SO HOW'D IT GO?
i made this with a different "cheese" sauce, but i wanted to at least say thanks for making me feel important with black beans and broccoli. i don't know that i would have come up with the combo on my own, but it totally works for a quick-make-some-food-it's-getting-late dinner. and i didn't feel bad, like, "aw, man - there's no protein" or whatever. 'cause there was.
for wham-bam-thank-you-ma'm meals, this one is probably gonna be a sticker. thanks!
Holy moly this is really good. i never thought to cook beans and pasta together with a cheesy sauce. I made this with cavatappi pasta (corkscrew tubes) because they are fun, and with brocolli and black beans. Also, when I saw the picture I thought there were mushrooms in it, so even though they weren't in the recipe I added some anyway, chopped up portabellas that i sauteed with some red onions. I think it was in the spirit of your original creation because everyone knows that mushrooms and onions are definitely grown-up food.
I am also afraid of fake cheese and allergic to spending money on it, so I made some of the nutritional yeast cheese dip/sauce from this site. Yum!
This is definitely in my rotation now. Great idea and thanks for sharing!
Oh yeah! I was also inspired with your steamer-while-the-pasta-cooks idea, but I don't quite have the right hardware. So I improvised by putting two wooden spoons like railroad tracks across the top of my pasta pot, and then used that as a platform for a wire strainer that I could put my broccolis in. I had to toss them around a couple of times so that they would all get some good steam, but they came out great :)
If you want more of an old-fashioned macaroni and cheese flavor... just eat it sans veggies! It's great that way, too!