I keep checking my palms everyday to see if I’m coming down with Carotenaemia, which is the presence of orange pigment in the blood due to excessive intake of carotene, found in foods like carrots, squash and pumpkin. When you reach a certain saturation point, your palms turn orange. No sign of it yet, but I have two butternut squash on my counter, and a case of pumpkin in the pantry.

This is a wonderful recipe for Butternut Squash Mac ‘n Cheeze that Angela Liddon created and posted on her Oh She Glows website. It’s so good that I didn’t change a thing. One tip, though. It calls for unsweetened almond milk, and since I had original almond milk in the fridge, I used that. It did taste a bit sweeter than it probably should have. Also, Angela suggests using brown rice macaroni, but I think this would be good with any type of macaroni. I used a quinoa/corn macaroni, which tasted great and had a yellowish color to it that made it look more like a traditional mac ‘n cheese.

This recipe calls for one cup of butternut squash, and since I roasted a whole squash, I had about 4 cups left over. For another meal, I pureed the rest of the squash with a little vegetable broth and some roasted garlic and sage. I added salt and pepper, warmed up the squash in a saucepan, then spooned it into some giant (cooked) pasta shells. I sprinkled chopped, roasted hazelnuts on top, drizzled the shells with a little olive oil, and it was a wonderful, easy meal.

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Butternut Squash Mac ‘n Cheeze
 

Ingredients
  • 1 cup fresh, roasted butternut squash OR 1 cup canned pumpkin
  • Extra virgin olive oil, S & P
  • 1 tbsp Earth Balance (or other non-dairy butter replacer)
  • ¾ cup unsweetened & unflavored almond milk
  • 1 tbsp arrowroot powder (or cornstarch)
  • 6 tbsp nutritional yeast, or more to taste
  • 2 tsp Dijon mustard
  • ¼ tsp garlic powder
  • ½-3/4 tsp kosher salt (or to taste) & ground black pepper, to taste
  • 4 servings brown rice macaroni (8oz or half a 16oz package) makes 3¼ cup cooked
  • Mix-ins of choice (e.g., kale, spinach, broccoli, peas, pumpkin seeds, etc)

Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 425F. Line a baking pan with tin foil. Take the whole squash, pierce it several times with a fork and microwave it for a minute. Then slice it lengthwise and scoop out the pulp. Slice the two halves in half. Put the four quarters in a roasting pan and brush them with a tbsp of olive oil and salt and pepper. Roast for about 40 minutes, uncovered, or until tender. Let the squash cool slightly, then peel and chop.
  2. Meanwhile, prepare the cheeze sauce in a pot on the stove top. Add Earth balance over low-medium heat. In a bowl, whisk together milk and arrowroot powder (or cornstarch or flour) until clumps are gone. Add into pot and whisk. Stir in remaining ingredients (nutritional yeast, Dijon, garlic, S & P) and whisk over low heat until thickened (about 5-7 minutes or so).
  3. Cook your pasta according to package directions. The sauce makes enough to cover 4 servings of pasta.
  4. In a blender, blend the sauce with 1 cup of roasted squash (or if using canned squash or pumpkin, simply stir 1 cup into the pot).
  5. Add cooked, drained, and rinsed macaroni into pot, along with cheeze sauce & mix-ins. Heat and serve.
  6. Notes: 1) My 3.5 pound squash made 5 cups cooked squash, so I had about 4 cups leftover. 2) The sauce does not cut in half well (the blender has a hard time blending it up), 3) I tried this recipe with canned pumpkin and it was awesome!