Thus Bakes Zarathustra

Chloe is my best friend, and it is her birthday this weekend. Chloe and I moved to Melbourne at around the same time, and spent the first few months broke, drunk and happy. We ate madeira cake and stole wine at art openings and behaved poorly. They were the salad days. Back when I was part of the 3051 massive (aka, I lived in North Melbourne) we were forever at each other’s houses, cooking things and watching TV and having conversations that made my male housemates pale with horror. We acquired a few more ladeez during that time, and Dinner Club was born.

The first rule of Dinner Club is there are no rules for Dinner Club. The second is no boys allowed. We break the second rule often, but let’s not discuss that. There are many dinner club staples - Clare’s ‘the meal,’ an assemblage of roast vegetables, coriander, feta, lime juice and brown rice, Chloe’s many, varied and excellent curries, and my CWA macaroni cheese, so named because I imagine a grandmother in Wagga might make it, and also because it involves at least two brand name products. My version of macaroni cheese will be unrecognisable and perhaps unacceptable to some, as it is (a) pink and (b) involves a vegetable, but I stand by it. Basically, it involves quickly cooking a chopped green capsicum in a generous amount of butter until soft, then making a roux right there in the capsicum-filled pan, then turning that roux into a white sauce, then tinting that white sauce pink with an entire tin of Heinz Big Red, then enriching it with handfuls of whatever bagged shredded cheese was on special at the IGA. This sauce was then tipped over cooked Black & Gold pasta shapes in a baking dish and topped with a crunchy crust of Tandaco Stuffing Mix, and baked until golden and bubbling. Believe me, it is the business.

However, in a move that pleased animals everywhere, but broke my butter loving little heart, Chloe became a vegan last year, and the orgy of cheese had to stop. So for Dinner Club 2008: Chloe’s Birthday Edition I decided to have a crack at a vegan version. Here is what it took:

I quickly wrote out the ingredients on the only paper available, a piece of a rather road worn draft of my confirmation report. The foreign man noted the irony of this title next to a recipe. Anyway, the vegan cheese sauce recipe is ganked from Susan’s delicious eggplant parmesan recipe.

CWA Macaroni Cheese for Vegans
Serves four to six

• A quantity of small pasta shapes, adequate for your purposes
• A green capsicum, seeded and roughly chopped
• Tandaco Stuffing Mix, or some other seasoned bread crumb mix
• A tin of Heinz Big Red tomato soup, or other soup of your choice
• 1/2 cup silken tofu. I had every intention of weighing this, but I am an untidy and forgetful cook
• 1/2 cup soy milk
• 1/2 cup vegetable stock
• 2 tbsp tahini
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1 1/2 tbsp nutritional yeast
• 2 tsp corn starch

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C and put the pasta on to boil. Susan makes the sauce by putting tofu, soy milk, stock, tahini, onion powder, nutritional yeast and corn starch in a blender. I do not have a blender, so I mashed the tofu with a potato masher then beat in the other ingredients. My sauce was a little lumpy. I want a blender.

Melt a dessert spoon of Nuttelex or other vegan-appropriate margarine in a medium saucepan over a medium heat, and cook capsicum until softened. Stir in the faux-cheese sauce, followed by the tomato soup. Drain the pasta when it is cooked and tip into a baking dish. Pour over the warmed, pink faux-cheese sauce. Sprinkle generously with your Tandaco Stuffing Mix. I also sprinkled over a little nutritional yeast for cheesey flavour. Bake for around half an hour, until golden on top and bubbling.

Serve and eat on the couch, preferably while watching America’s Next Top Model.

For dessert I decided to have a crack at Deb’s chocolate pudding, which only required a switch from cow to soy milk to become vegan. It worked a treat and I will now be making it often.

Chocolate Pudding for Vegans
Serves six. Or five, in this case. My kingdom for a better spatula.

• 3 cups good, creamy soy milk, such as Bonsoy
• 1/4 cup cornflour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 200g good dark chocolate, roughly chopped
• 1 tsp vanilla

Combine the cornflour and sugar in a medium heavy saucepan. Stirring constantly, pour in the soy milk. Place over a low to medium heat and bring to the slightest of simmers, stirring every now and then and scraping the corners well. Continue to simmer for 15-20 minutes until it thickens, keeping in mind that once it starts to thicken you’ll want to be stirring it almost constantly. Once thick stir in the chocolate until melted, then remove from heat and stir in the vanilla.

Ladle into small containers, like coffee cups or ramekins, cover with plastic wrap and fridge for around 30 minutes until cold and set.