If I Had a Million Dollars, We Wouldn't Have to Eat Kraft Dinner (as the Canadians call it)

...but we would....we would just buy more expensive ketchup to go with it, say the Barenaked Ladies.

I'll raise your fancy ketchup and see you two cups of cashews to multiply the cost of "Kraft dinner" eightfold.

My friend and former California running buddy (who finished a half-marathon at the Wild Animal Park and is to be commended!) Jessica Antoniades found this recipe for a cashew-based faux cheese sauce in a back issue of the cookbook put out by the Pacific Beach Food Coop (or some other such name...I probably have it entirely wrong, since I never visited it myself, sadly).  It called for a few ingredients that are in a faux alfredo I saw in another cookbook and thought a mashup might be in order, but I have a strict cooking pact with my hubs that I will not fiddle with a recipe until I try it *as written* and I tried this one as written today.  It came out fairly well, but it will need tinkering.

In the interest of this post's longevity, we will call this Vegan Mac With Pantry Staples because most people probably have a lot of this stuff in the cupboard already, if they cook much.

Here is what the recipe (as written in the coop cookbook) calls for:
WARNING:  CONTAINS NUTS.  (With the saucy title of this post and the recipe, the inclusion of nuts thing isn't super clear so there it is in all caps.)

3 cups macaroni (cooked al dente, however your pasta box directs you)
1 large red bell pepper (I'll admit:  I didn't have one, so I left it out;  I imagine it would have mellowed the pickley tang of the next ingredient...
1.5 tsp turmeric (the great panacea which has the added benefit of naturally turning this confection Super Cheez Whiz orangey yellow)
2 cups cashews (Trader Joes has a bag of Raw Cashew Bits and Pieces that is two cups precisely, to make this simple)
2.25 cups water
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tbsp sunflower oil (I only had sunflower seeds on hand, so I used those)
1 teaspoon onion power (not something I have around so I just threw in a quarter of a small onion)
1.5 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon garlic powder
(Hubs might be a tad disappointed with all the substitutions)

For topping if you choose to bake in the oven:  2 cups breadcrumbs

If you are going to bake this up, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.  You can cook your macaroni while the over preheats.
Whiz everything but the pasta in a blender.  We have a fairly large blender, and it filled the whole thing;  the volume of the sauce is about 1 quart.  I turned on the blender and busied myself with other things;  you want to give it time to get smooth.

When the pasta is done, drain it.  Combine the sauce with the pasta in an 8x8' baking dish, cover an bake for 45 minutes.  Uncover and top with breadcrumbs and bake for 5 more minutes.

I made the sauce and poured it directly on raw julienned zuchini "noodles" and warmed it in the microwave and it was great.  I think the red pepper would have added more depth to the flavor.  I want to experiment putting some nutritional yeast flakes in,  too;  they have a cheezy flavor sans fromage.  Expect that as part of my next tinkering.

If you try this, post and tell me how it turned out!