Macaroni and Cheese

Last night I made vegan macaroni and cheese.  I think it tastes weird and should only be consumed in small portions.  My foodie husband thought it was fantastic.  I'm not sure I'd ever make it again.  I also made it with some portabello mushroom "steaks".  I wouldn't make that recipe again.  It was too balsamic vinegar-y for my taste (and I LOVE balsamic vinegar - it just didn't work with the mushrooms).  Next time I would probably try more of a wine-based broth.

Into Week 2 now of the diet, and today I'm feeling oddly at peace with this decision.  Samm seems to have really taken to this vegan thing well, but I'm feeling very frustrated and irritable about it all.  Part of it is having to read every single label, buy so many crazy things (like nutritional yeast).  The 3-pound loss is awesome, and I hope it stays off.  Maybe that's why things seem more positive today!

If you're a true vegan, you're supposed to stay away from as many chemicals as possible.  But, with the Thrive Diet, it goes beyond that.  For instance, Brendan Brazier says that you should stay away from quite a lot of foods, like soy, corn, sugar, etc.  Why?  Because these are not things that humans were designed to eat.  Because the body cannot process these manufactured foods correctly, it wastes energy on digestion, and thus, you aren't getting the nutrition that you need.

Also, you have to supplement your meals with things like flaxseed, maca, chlorella, and all these other things that I've never heard of.

But really, were our bodies designed to eat algae and flaxseed?  Not only that, but so many foods today are hybrids, cross-breeds, and otherwise engineered to be more nutritious, last longer, have more flavor, etc.  And if it's better for our bodies to not eat meat, then why do we have to consume so many of these strange things to make up for nutrients that we're lacking?  (By the way, Mr. Triathlete Brazier, I don't think our bodies were designed for IronMans, either.)

Anyway, I went to grad school, so I could ramble on about this for another fifty paragraphs and cite all kinds of scholarly papers.  I won't - here's the recipe for the macaroni and cheese instead.  I found this on Alicia Silverstone's website.  Samm, I'll go downstairs right now and put a container of nutritional yeast together for you.




Macaroni and Cheese

This recipe is from Kristina Brindley of Seedling Catering in LA. Seedling Catering is a beyond awesome vegan delivery and catering company. I could go on about Kristina and her yummy dishes... but for now, you must try her Mac 'n Cheese.

• Prep time: 15 minutes
• Cook time: 40 minutes
• Total time: 55 minutes
• Servings: 5  I cut the recipe in half and we still have about half of it left!!
  

• 3 cup(s) of Elbow pasta
• 1 cup(s) of soymilk
• 1/4 cup(s) of tamari Next time I'll use less tamari.
• 1 cup(s) of nutritional yeast
• 1 tsp. of paprika
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1 tsp. of dijon mustard
• 2/3 cup(s) of canola oil  I used olive oil.
• 1 pinch salt & pepper 
  

Steps

1. Cook the pasta al dente.
2. In a blender/food processor combine the garlic, nutritional yeast, mustard and paprika, blend to chop garlic.
3. While the machine is running add the tamari, soymilk and canola oil and blend until creamy.
4. Heat sauce and mix with cooked noodles.
5. You can also do it as a baked Mac n’ Cheese by adding about 1/2 cup of water to the sauce and undercooking the noodles a little.
6. Top with breadcrumbs and bake in a casserole dish in a 350 oven until bubbly and breadcrumbs are browned.
   

Namarie!