Thick, Creamy, Cheezy Sauce

That's actually good for you. Also, how to roast red peppers

This post is a day late, and for that I apologize. The 18th was jam-packed with joyful events beginning with a senior grandson’s final home soccer game where seniors were honored, and ending with the closest No Kings Rally to the soccer game’s location where 300-400 folks turned out including two unicorns, a giant chicken, a T-rex, a frog, and an alien! Talk about diversity!

I was plum exhausted by the time I got home, but fulfilled as well.

So now I have a moment to share this fabulous and versatile sauce recipe that has a million uses.

• Mix with pasta for your tastiest Mac & cheeze ever

• Drizzle over cooked veggies

• Stir into a bowlful of roasted cauliflower and potato chunks

• Use as a dip

• Dollop atop goulash or stir fries

• Add to mashed potatoes

• Dress up anything that needs a creamy, savory sauce

You can adjust the level of its thickness as much or as little as as you like, just by changing the amount of flour. If it turns out thicker than you want on the first try, add more milk to thin.

Ingredients

1 red bell pepper (The tall, slender red bell peppers have more flavor than the short round ones.)

• 1 & 1/2 cups soy milk

• 2/3 cup nutritional yeast

• 1/2 cup potato flour

• 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar

• 1 tsp dry mustard

• 1 teaspoon garlic powder

• 1/2 - 1 teaspoon smoked paprika

• 1/2 teaspoon turmeric

• Freshly ground black pepper

First, roast the red pepper

Method

1. Pre-heat oven to 425º

2. Wash the red pepper, cut into lengthwise quarters, remove the seeds.

3. Place the quarters skin-side-up on a silicone- or parchment-lined baking sheet.

4. Bake for 20-25 minutes until the skins are blackened and charred. Not just a little around the edges, you want to let them get blacker than that.

5. Remove from the oven and allow to cool

6. Once cooled, pinch off skins

7. Finely chop the remaining soft meat of the pepper

Make the sauce

1. Put all ingredients except black pepper into a saucepan, including the roasted pepper and whisk smooth.

2. Heat while stirring until the sauce begins to simmer and thicken.

3. If it’s too thick, add more soy milk. If it’s too thin, whisk some more flour with a little more milk and add that, then heat once again until it simmers and thickens.
   *Thicker sauce is better for dips and dollops, slightly thinner for mixing into other foods or pasta.

4. Finish by adding black pepper.

*Black pepper boosts the body’s absorption of curcumin, the powerful anti-inflammatory ingredient in turmeric. Usually it’s quite poorly absorbed into our bloodstreams. The presence of pepper fixes that!

That’s it, you’re done. Refrigerate in a glass jar with a tight lid and use for up to a week. Maybe longer.

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