Mac N Cheese

For dinner tonight we thought we'd try a new recipe for Vegan Mac N Cheese from this great little book Vegan on the Cheap Court's mom picked up...  We adapted it a bit, the original recipe called for tofu, which we omitted, and instead baked in our fav cheese substitute. 

To make the sauce:

2.5 cups plain unsweetened soy milk

1/2 cup nutritional yeast

2 tablespoons cornstarch

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

1 teaspoon yellow mustard

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon onion powder

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1/4 teaspoon tumeric

1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne

Combine the dry ingredients, and then add the wet ingredients.  Our finished sauce:

We mixed the sauce with cooked pasta in a medium sized baking dish, topped it with Daiya cheese and bread crumbs, and baked the whole thing at 375 F for about 15 min.  And Voila! Our finished product:

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So yummy, and so simple to make!  We topped the finished product with some peas and stewed tomatoes, Delish.

I have recently discovered Giovanni Cosmetics.  I can’t always get to the health food store and I find myself trolling the aisles of my local Target in search of vegan friendly products.  On one such trip I was on a mission to find shampoo and I discovered Giovanni.  I did a little research on the brand, and while not all of their products are vegan, MOST are.  The exceptions are their lip balms (because they contain beeswax) and their “magnetic” products which contain lactoferrin, a protein derived from milk.  The brand is all organic, family owned, and produced in the US.  What’s not to love?

My personal fav, available at Target for $9.29:

(Information was obtained from giovannicosmetics.com)

Living without cruelty...

A little background on what got me here.

I have loved animals my entire life.  When I was 7, I remember finding a fly caught in a spider's web, and spending an hour with toothpicks doing my best to get the fly free.  I cried through every animal movie... from Homeward Bound to Stewart Little.   I became a vegetarian in high school while working at Burger King... repulsed by the way that the animals I loved were reduced to nothing more than ingredients.  At first I gave up only red meat, in a year I gave up poultry.  Finally, I gave up fish.  I struggled trying to help people understand my choice not to eat flesh.  It was considered "wierd" by most of the people in my life, and my diet became an inconvenience for them.  I was told I was malnurished, asked what seemed to me ridiculous questions like "Where do you get protein?" and "Don't carrots have feelings?"   I craved knowledge, nutritional evidence to back my ethical decisions.  I changed my major to Nutrition, and changed schools, which turned out to be one of the greatest decisions I could have made.  This past January, with the backing and support of my animal loving boyfriend, I took the final plunge and went vegan, something I had pondered for ages but never had the nerve to do.  So here I am, a new vegan, newly graduated nutritionist, with a thirst for knowledge and a passion for animal rights.  I do my best, but I make plenty of mistakes too.  There is a bit of a learning curve with this vegan thing.  Not only do I no longer eat animal products but i don't use them either.  I do my best to buy products that aren't tested on animals, but it seems I am forever finding hidden ingredients I didn't know were animal derived.  Its a process.  But as I grow and learn I am constantly encouraged and thankful that I have started this journey.  I am starting this little blog to document my triumphs and failures, and I hope that it can be encouraging and helpful for others who are also trying to live without cruelty.