Preheat oven to 180°C⁠

• Start by slicing the butternut squash lengthways and remove the seeds. Place in a tray and glaze with 1 tbsp of olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Pop in the oven, timer set to 40 minutes.
• After 20 minutes of relaxing, wash the leeks before slicing lengthways to divide each leek into two, and then cross ways to chop. Add to a large frying pan on low heat with a tbsp of olive oil and a pinch of salt. Leeks work well when they are cooked low & slow so reduce the heat and chuck a podcast on. ⁠
• While the leeks gently fry, cook the pasta according to the packet time. For this pasta it was 8 minutes. Add half the carrot to the pasta water to boil so that it’s ready to go into the blender with the butternut squash. This helps to give the vegan cheese sauce that luminous orange Kraft Mac n cheese vibe. ⁠
• Once the butternut squash has roasted, use a spoon to remove the squash from the skin and place in the blender along with all the seasoning, the boiled ½ carrot and 500ml veggie stock. Blend to combine. ⁠
• Drain and rinse the butterbeans before adding them to the blender and blending for the second time, if you over blend butterbeans they can give a grainy texture so this is why we do it in two steps. Blend for a further 3 seconds or so.⁠
• At this stage, all the elements of your vegan Mac and cheese should be ready. So you can pour the cheese like sauce all over the mac and combine with the glossy leeks. If you like a little heat kick, serve up with a pinch of red pepper flakes. ⁠

To reheat, pop in the mic for 2 minutes ⁠

ENJOY!