Sweet Potato Mac N Cheese

Here's another entry in my quest for the perfect mac n cheese recipe. This packs a nice nutritional punch with pureed sweet potatoes, carrots, celery, and beans hidden in the cheese sauce. Apologies for the picture, this dish just does not photograph well. As Philip so eloquently put it: "That photo looks like cat vomit! Fortunately it tastes significantly better than that!" So there you have it. Enjoy! ;)

Ingredients
2 sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
1 can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 lb mixed vegetables, frozen
1 lb pasta, cooked according to package directions
1 lb sausage, cooked
8oz sharp cheddar cheese

Directions
Boil the sweet potatoes, carrots, celery, onions and garlic in just enough water to cover them. When they are soft, transfer in batches to a blender and puree with a little bit of the water they have been boiled in. Return puree to a pan and add beans, veggies, pasta, sausage, and cheese. Stir until combined and cheese has melted.

Notes

• This recipe makes a lot, maybe 15-20 servings. I didn't realize this and ended up freezing half the batch.
• I used frozen peas and carrots instead of mixed veggies. You can probably use whatever you have available and it would taste fine.
• My family tends to dislike visible vegetables so I pureed everything again after I added the beans and frozen veggies. I think there's nothing wrong with a little trickery if it gets your family to eat something healthy.
• You might want to use more meat. I only used enough for half the batch so that we could eat the other half on Lenten Fridays if we needed to.