Vegan Mac & Cheese

The "cheese" is Follow Your Heart vegan Monterey Jack, available at Cape Cod Natural Foods. The rest of the ingredients, whole wheat elbows, soy milk, panko, olive oil and spices are all readily available at most grocery stores. It doesn't taste like regular mac & cheese, but it still has a nice flavor.







The only place I've found truly vegan soy cheese on the Cape is at Cape Cod Natural Foods, though it's probably available at other natural foods stores as well. The ones that are available at the regular grocery stores and Trader Joe's contain casein, so they are not vegan. If you happen to find vegan soy cheese, note that only the Follow Your Heart and Vegan Rella brands will melt when cooked. Other brands will retain their shape. They taste fine, but have a very different texture!

Vegan Stroganoff

I made this earlier this month. The recipe is from Vegan with a Vengeance. In it is homemade seitan, recipe also from VwaV. Store bought seitan can be purchased at Cape Cod Natural Foods (and likely other natural foods stores), but making it is not terribly difficult and much cheaper. All it takes is vital wheat gluten and some seasonings that you probably already have around the house. Vital wheat gluten is also available at Cape Cod Natural Foods, as well as in the natural foods section of Shaw's.

This particular recipe does not call for a sour cream substitute, which was the appeal for me. I like Tofutti Sour Cream, but it's expensive and more difficult to find. I did have a carton of it that I purchased at Whole Foods in Hingham, though it can probably be found at most of the natural foods stores around. However, I only used it as a garnish, and it's not at all necessary to the recipe. The veggies in the recipe can all be found at any grocery store (frozen peas and asparagus, fresh carrots, onion and garlic. The recipe calls for shallots, but I didn't have any so I added extra garlic and onions). Finally, to make this vegan, I used whole wheat fettuchini that I found at Shaw's instead of using the traditional egg noodles.

This was incredibly good. Recipes like this make being a veg*n easy!