cheese and thank you: a healthier, dairy free way to get your cheese fix

ugh.  what a day.  snow, slush, rain, and temperatures just barely above freezing since the crack of dawn this morning.  mother nature, i gotta say, it's a little early for an april fool's joke, and definitely a lot late for this kind of wintry mixology.  so far, this first week of spring has felt an awful lot like the first week of winter.  bleh!  on days like today, all i want is sunshine...but since that's not an option, i'll definitely settle for comfy jammies, silly movies, and a giant bowl of rich, melty comfort food.  something along these lines, perhaps?

thick, creamy, cheerful, delicious

roasted veggies with cheeseless cheesey sauce

there really isn't any cheese in this, but thanks to the flavor from the nutritional yeast and spices, the lovely golden color from the sweet potato, and the yummy creamy texture, you'll almost be fooled into thinking there is.  this sauce just happens to be way better for you, though.  it's low in calories, loaded with veggies, vitamins, protein, and nutrients, and it's very low in fat, unlike it's sloppy, saturated cheddar-cheesey counterpart.  i still love cheese.  a lot.  an awful lot.  but i'm not so huge on it's nutritional write-up a lot of times, so i tend to chow down on it really sparingly.  i still get cheesey cravings, though...in a big way.  so i've been on the hunt for something more health appropriate for a while now.  so, using kathy's amazing vegan cheesey pasta recipe as inspiration, i came up with my own version of this awesome entree.  this ending up making a LOT of sauce, which could easily stand alone as a really yummy, creamy soup as well.  i was left with a lot of leftovers after stuffing myself and nick, and i plan to eat the rest as soup and sauce for the next few days.  hurray for cooking in bulk!

i ended up serving mine over a nice big helping of roasted veggies for this go around, but this would be really amazing with pasta, rice, or quinoa as well.  to make roasted veggies, just preheat your oven to 400, choose your vegetables (i used cauliflower, 2 small onions,  baby carrots, brussel sprouts, mushrooms, and a few sliced cloves of garlic this time) wash them, cut into bite sized chunks, and toss them with olive oil, sea salt and spices (rosemary and basil are two of my favorites for roasted veggies).  lay them out in a single layer on a foil lined baking sheet and roast for about 30 minutes, stirring every 10-15 minutes to make sure they roast evenly.  different veggies cook at different speeds so monitor them as they cook to make sure they're all tender before you decide that they're finished.  while these are cooking, you can work on getting your sauce ready.
you will need:

• 1 smallish onion cut into pieces
• 1 large parsnip or 2 small ones cut into chunks
• 1 very large sweet potato or 2 small to medium sized ones cut into large chunks
• about 1/4 head of cauliflower cut into chunks
• 1 can of broth (i used low fat chicken broth, but veggie or even coconut milk would work as well)
• 1 1/2 ts sea salt
• 1 ts dried basil
• 2 T garlic powder
• 2 T light shredded coconut
• 6-7 T nutritional yeast
• 1 T dijon mustard
• 7 oz of 2% or whole fat greek yogurt (don't use fat free.  it separates into a weird mealy mess when you cook it) *OR* if you want to keep it vegan/dairy free you can use vegan sour cream or just omit this entirely for a slightly less thick/creamy sauce with a little less tang

heat a pot over medium low heat.  throw in onion, parsnips, and sweet potato with a bit of olive oil and cook until onion starts to turn translucent.  add cauliflower and broth and turn heat up to medium.  make sure all the veggies are at least partially covered in broth and add a little soy milk or water if you need to.  bring to a simmer and add the salt, basil, garlic powder, coconut, and nutritional yeast.  cover, and cook until all the veggies are tender, stirring occassionally...generally about 15 minutes or so.  ladle out all the large veggie chunks into a blender or food processor leaving the broth behind and blend until smooth.  return the creamy sauce-soup mixture to the pot and mix in mustard and greek yogurt.  stir until it's all consistent, smooth and evenly heated, adjusting the spices if needed.  pile garlicky roasted veggies onto your plate, cover with amazing creamy sauce, sprinkle with a little paprika if you'd like, and just try not to devour this with a spoon in both hands.  it's that yummy.

mmmm.....cheesey, easy, tummy pleasey.  enjoy, guys!  this sauce is about as deceptively cheesey as this spring has been deceptively wintery.  guilt free, but you'd never know it.  hurrah!