A while ago, my friend Jo over at Every Nook and Cranny sent me a recipe for chicken meatballs in a cream sauce from a blog called Cooking and Beer. Now you might think that’s not an obvious recommendation to a vegan but Jo – who, like me, is a recipe tweaker by nature – had spotted its potential as a mushroom dish. The cream sauce consisted of almond milk and cauliflower, so that part was already sorted.
With a few changes and additions, I created this mushroom sauce that, in a way, resembles my vegetarian Mushroom Ragout. In fact, I like it better than a veganised version of that ragout, which I cooked recently. One addition is nutritional yeast, affectionally known as ‘noosh’ in Vegan Land, but – if Wikipedia is to be believed – also called ‘hippie dust’, which is the name it goes by in my head these days. 
I love all mushrooms, so I’ve gone with a nice mix here, but use any type of mushroom you like or fancy.
Ingredients
500 g cauliflower (cleaned weight), cut into florets
1 medium onion, chopped
4 cloves of garlic, chopped
250 ml almond milk
125 ml vegetable stock
2 heaped tbsp nutritional yeast
salt and pepper (add a little bit now, adjust seasoning later)
1 tbsp lemon juice
650 g (mixed) mushrooms
4 tbsp chives, chopped
Preparation
– Boil the cauliflower in salted boiling water for 10 minutes or until cooked through. Drain and set aside.
– Meanwhile, sauté the onion until soft, add the garlic and fry for another 2 minutes
– Put the cauli, onion and garlic mixture, almond milk. stock, nutritional yeast, salt, pepper and lemon juice in a blender and whizz until smooth (you could also use a stick blender or food processor, of course). Set aside.
– Fry the mushrooms in (chilli) oil, preferably in two batches so they don’t stew in their own juices.
– Add the contents of the blender to the pan with the mushrooms and heat through.
– Add more salt, pepper and lemon juice, to taste.
– Serve with rice, pasta, potatoes, whatever you like.
The Vegetable Chopper 