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Recipe: Vegan Macaroni And Cheese Casserole

Plump Vegan — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 23:30:51 +0000

When I was a child, my dad made a macaroni and cheese casserole that was my absolute favorite dish. Whenever my parents were having something for dinner that didn’t suit my eight-year-old picky-picky tastes, my dad would indulge me with macaroni and cheese. At the peak of my unadventurous eating, I was probably having it three or four times a week. (No wonder I turned into a plump vegan.)

I was walking past the vegan cheese section at Whole Foods the other day, and I had an idea. Could I recreate the thoroughly non-vegan dish from my childhood as a vegan macaroni and cheese casserole?

I was delighted with the results.

I couldn’t resist digging in before we got a photo.

Here’s the recipe. It requires about 25 minutes of preperation and about 35 minutes of baking time.

2 1/2 cups dry macaroni
8 oz. (1 package) of Daiya Vegan Cheese (I used the cheddar flavor, but I’m sure the mozzarella would be good also. I do strongly recommend the Daiya brand due to its meltiness.)
14 oz. vegan sausages (I used one package of Tofurky Kielbasa flavor sausages. This was perfect for me, but feel free to experiment.)
1 1/2 cup soy milk
2 Tbsp. Earth Balance margarine
2 Tbsp. flour (white or whole wheat should work)

1. Boil water for the macaroni. Cook them for about 9 minutes or until al dente.
2. While the macaroni is boiling—In a small sauce pan melt the margarine on medium heat. Add the flour. Stir continuously with a fork or wire whisk over medium heat until it starts to turn brown and/or you catch a little whiff that smells a bit burnt. Don’t worry, that’s ok! Immediately add the soy milk and continue to stir over medium heat until just before the soy milk begins to boil. Don’t let it boil. Turn the heat off just before it does. Set aside.
3. When the macaroni is cooked, drain and rinse with cold water until all the macaroni is cool to the touch.
4. Grease a 2 quart (or larger) casserole dish and pour in the macaroni.
5. Dice the vegan sausage into 1/2 inch chunks and add to the macaroni.
6. Set aside about 1/4 cup of the shredded Daiya Vegan Cheese. Add the rest to the macaroni.
7. Stir the soy milk sauce (it may have formed a little skin on top which is ok) and then add it to the macaroni.
8. Mix everything together in the casserole dish until roughly uniform.

At this point it’s ready to bake. You can store it (covered) in the refrigerator for up to 24 hours to bake later, or you can bake immediately.

Baking Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Bake casserole uncovered for 25 minutes.
3. Increase temperature to 450 degrees and sprinkle the remaining 1/4 cup of Daiya on top. The extra Daiya on top will form a crispy crust at the higher temperature.
4. Bake for 10 additional minutes at 450 (plus perhaps another few minutes while the oven heats up to 450).
5. Remove from oven, let cool for a minute or two, and dig in. Serves 6-8. Or just one hungry and nostalgic plump vegan.

Fifty Million Slaughtered Turkeys. And Football.

Plump Vegan — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 16:26:24 +0000

In anticipation of the day of fifty million slaughtered turkeys, the New York Times has printed a Thanksgiving op-ed by Gary Steiner that makes the unapologetic case for veganism.

[U]ses of animals are so institutionalized, so normalized, in our society that it is difficult to find the critical distance needed to see them as the horrors that they are: so many forms of subjection, servitude and — in the case of killing animals for human consumption and other purposes — outright murder.

and

We have been trained by a history of thinking of which we are scarcely aware to view non-human animals as resources we are entitled to employ in whatever ways we see fit in order to satisfy our needs and desires. Yes, there are animal welfare laws. But these laws have been formulated by, and are enforced by, people who proceed from the proposition that animals are fundamentally inferior to human beings. At best, these laws make living conditions for animals marginally better than they would be otherwise — right up to the point when we send them to the slaughterhouse.

Think about that when you’re picking out your free-range turkey, which has absolutely nothing to be thankful for on Thanksgiving. All it ever had was a short and miserable life, thanks to us intelligent, compassionate humans.

What he said. And, uh, go vegan!

H/T to Mom.

Review: The Simple Little Vegan Dog Book

Plump Vegan — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:32:29 +0000

This will be a simple little review for The Simple Little Vegan Dog Book. If you care for dogs—whether you are vegan, vegetarian, or just veg-curious—read this book! You’ll be more knowledgable and your dogs will be healthier for it.

(Disclosure: I received a free review copy of this book.)

The book is divided into three main parts: “The Vegan Lifestyle”, “Hazardous and Safe Ingredients”, and then a recipe section.

“The Vegan Lifestyle” makes the case for feeding your dog a vegan diet. It debunks a lot of the myths, most notably the one that, “Dogs are carnivores. They need meat!” Dogs are carnivores in taxonomic classification only. Wild dogs are not carnivores, they are omnivores. You don’t need a degree in biology to know this. Just take a hike around the Las Vegas area until you see some coyote scat. You’ll see a lot of bean and pea seed coats from the mesquite trees that live around here. These bean pods are one of the southwestern coyote’s staple foods.

Indeed domestic dogs that live with humans are, by and large, not carnivores either. They are kibble-vores. The fact is that a whole-foods vegan diet is healthier for most dogs than the cut-rate kibble on offer at most pet stores.

After you are educated by “The Vegan Lifestyle”, you’ll learn briefly which human foods to avoid feeding your dog in “Hazardous and Safe Ingredients.” I’ll reproduce the list of foods to AVOID here because it’s important that all dog-caregivers know these foods:

alcohol

avocados

chocolate

cold cuts

fried foods

garlic

grapes

mushrooms

nutmeg

nuts

onions

raisins

salt

sugar

tomatoes

xylitol

Some of these foods are more harmful than others. For instance, salt is no problem in small quantities, but never feed your dog grapes or raisins. To find out why each of these foods is on the list, read the book!

The final section is a list of recipes for your dog. These recipes are delightfully simple. You don’t need to have human cooking skills to be able to prepare nutritious food for your dog companions. For instance, here is “Snoopy’s Great Pumpkin, Rice, and Beans”

1 (15-ounce) can pumpkin

1 cup cooked brown rice

1 cup cooked or canned red or black beans, rinsed and drained

Combine all of the ingredients in a food processor or blender and process until smooth.

There you go, a healthy and nutritious meal for any dog. For the adventurous, the recipes get a little more fun (and complicated) than that one.

All-in-all, at just 80 pages, The Simple Little Vegan Dog Book packs a lot of knowledge into a little package. It’s well worth your time to check it out.

My Effortless Vegan Weightloss

Plump Vegan — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 12:51:36 +0000

A while back, I wrote a blog about my initial conversion to vegetarianism:

“In 2002 my mom had a heart attack, and I went to get my health checked. It wasn’t good. I was 22, and I already had a blood pressure of 140/88 and total cholesterol of 296 (below 150 is recommended, and anything over 240 is considered very high). And, of course, I was over 100 lbs. overweight. Heart disease and diabetes runs all over my family, and if I didn’t change something I was destined for problems… likely early in my life.

“After the 296 cholesterol reading, my doctor prescribed me a statin drug to lower the number. But I didn’t want to be drug-dependent for life, so I chose another path. I became a vegetarian (at that time still eating some fish).

“I had my cholesterol checked again after three months of being a veggie. It was down to 171! And my blood pressure had returned to a healthier 123/79. My doctor was floored.”

There was more. After I became a fish-eating vegetarian, I became a real vegetarian and then a vegan. But I still had weight to lose. My cholesterol was better, but not good enough, and my vegan diet wasn’t really helping with the wight loss. I was at a plateau.

A month ago I attended a nutritional seminar from Dr. McDougall. What I learned there resulted in changes to my diet. So far, one month in, I’m on schedule.

I’ve been eating this new way now for just over a month (about 32 days). I weighed 213.6 pounds (97kg) the day I started, and yesterday morning I cracked the 200 barrier, weighing in at 199.4 (90.6kg). So that’s 14 pounds (6.4kg) lost the first month. Yesterday I fit into a pair of pants that I’d been keeping in storage anticipating that one day I’d be able to wear them again.

The idea of the diet is very simple:

Eat only foods that are low in caloric density (and high in nutritional density).

That is, stick to foods that have relatively low caloric contents for their weight. In practice this means eating salad greens, green and yellow vegetables, fruits, whole grains (but not whole grain flour or bread), beans and lentils, and starchy vegetables like potatoes. Avoid adding oil to anything, avoid all meat, eggs, and dairy products (no problem for me because I was already a vegan), avoid nuts and avocados, and avoid “empty” carbs like soda and white flour.

Of the foods I eat, I eat as much of them as I want whenever I’m hungry.

Here’s a sample menu for a day, including the areas where I’ve been cheating a little bit. I like to cook, so I’ve been cooking some nicer meals a lot, but this menu will be what I would eat on my laziest day where I didn’t really want to cook at all.

Breakfast:

Bowl of oatmeal (3/4 cup dry rolled oats) topped with berries and maybe a teaspoon of maple syrup, and
An apple and a mandarin orange, and
2 cups of black coffee (I have a significant coffee habit that I’m going to improve, but not now.) You could have one cup or tea instead if you want to limit caffeine.

Snack:

1 or 2 fruits, and/or
snacking vegetables like carrots or snap peas

Lunch:

Salad greens with cherry tomatoes with low fat vegan dressing, and
Steamed vegetable (often frozen, sometimes fresh: string beans, peas, broccoli, asparagus, etc.), and
Stove-top potatoes or sweet potatoes/yams cooked in water (instead of oil), and
Large cup of juice spritzer (this is what I used to kick my once really bad soda habit) It’s one part fruit juice to about four parts seltzer water.

I cook up about 5 medium-sized potatoes and my wife, Elaine, and I eat them for lunch and then snack on them later in the afternoon until they’re gone. Sometimes I boil/mash them and add onion, garlic, jalapeno, etc. We eat the potatoes with seasoning… I like to sprinkle on a cajun spice blend I prepare. Elaine likes adobo.

Generally I fill half a large plate with salad, a quarter with the steamed veggies, and a quarter with the potatoes. I usually go back for seconds on the potatoes before the meal is over.

Snack:

Leftover potatoes/whatever was lunch, and
fruit or snack vegetables, and
1 cup of black coffee (told you I have a habit.. 3 cups a day is pretty standard) You could have tea instead.

Dinner:

Salad greens with cherry tomatoes, and
Steamed vegetables, and
Main dish (low fat vegan starch-based), and
Bottle of beer (stick with water or juice if you’re limiting or removing alcohol from your diet)

Example of dinner main dish:

1 can of diced tomatoes

1 can of pinto beans (rinsed and drained)

1/2 cup of frozen corn

1 jalapeno pepper, diced or canned

spices (cumin, chili powder, garlic powder, etc.)

Stick this in a pot, stir it up, and cook it until the liquid reduces somewhat.
Serve over brown rice.

Usually go back for seconds on the rice and beans too.

Ways I’ve cheated: I eat white rice instead of brown probably once or twice a week or so. I’ve had avocado a couple of times. The coffee and beer is my consistent cheating. I had one slice of cake and one order of fries during the month. I eat more fruit than I’m supposed to.. probably about 5 pieces a day and I’m supposed to limit to 3. I’m not going to sweat that.

So far the “cheating” I’ve done hasn’t stopped me from achieving my goals… so to that extent it’s really not cheating and is just living my life. The point is: a little cheating won’t undo the good. The more healthy foods you choose, the better.

For all my meals, the rule is that if I’m still hungry, I keep eating until I’m not hungry anymore. I usually cook at least double what I’d eat at a meal so about half my meals have been leftovers.

Honestly, I couldn’t be happier with this diet. I’m never hungry for long, I feel great, and the weight is just coming right off. I haven’t even added to my exercise routine yet. I plan to increase my exercise gradually as time progresses. Once I lose more weight I’d love to start playing soccer again.

Learn more about Dr. McDougall here: http://www.drmcdougall.com/
And visit the web forum to discuss diet and health here: http://www.drmcdougall.com/forums/index.php

Stupid Things Omnivores Say: “You Should Be Nicer If You Want To Convince Me”

Plump Vegan — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 21:53:31 +0000

Dear Omni Who Says Stupid Things,

You want me to be nicer? You want me to assure you that being vegan is “just a choice” and it’s really ok to eat meat as long as you think it tastes good? You want me to flash you a wink and a smile and pretend that your meat-eating lifestyle isn’t directly responsible for thousands of quiet atrocities every year? You want to tell me that, maybe – if I’m really super, duper nice and make sure never, ever to pierce your bubble of ignorance with any bloody reality or fetid truth – maybe then you’ll deign to listen to what I have to say and perhaps for a moment consider vegetarianism?

Well, guess what. I’m not trying to convince you. I don’t give a damn about you. I’m going to educate enough other people so that we have a society where unrepentant animal exploiters like you are shamed, ostracized, and reviled.

I hope you like being on the outside looking in.

Stupid Things Omnivores Say: But We Have Incisors…

Plump Vegan — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 13:07:45 +0000

Read this drivel from a comment on HuffPo today:

“Our incisors and cuspids are designed to tear flesh, why deny our biology. I embrace myself as a Person for the Eating of Tasty Animals.”

AKA, everything I learned about biology, ethics, and nutrition, I learned from my dentist.

If you read more of the comments you’ll see that this jerk wasn’t the only one to bust out the “but we have teeth” argument. Apparently omnis think we can answer all life’s questions through sufficiently rigorous examination of one another’s body parts.

Omnis, let me help you out here… unless you believe God created the world in six days and lovingly designed each of us down to the little toe nail. Then I can’t help you. (But maybe you can help me…. I’ve always wondered what we were supposed to use all that belly button lint for.)

If you believe in evolution, though, then there’s something you should know. Nothing about the way we are can answer questions about what we should or ought to do. Saying, “Doing X is only natural” or “We were evolved to do Y” is UTTERLY MEANINGLESS.

We weren’t evolved to do anything. We just evolved. Why do we have an appendix? Why do we have five fingers instead of seven or four? Why do we have eyebrows? Why can we smell rotten eggs, but not carbon monoxide? Why do we have some pointy teeth and some not-so-pointy teeth?

Because. I learned that answer in elementary school and it’s been useful ever since. We have pointy teeth because some creature 10,000 years ago or 100,000 years ago or 1 million or 10 million years ago who may or may not have been human as we know it happened to have pointy teeth and happened to have lots of babies. And those babies had babies who had more babies and eventually you appeared. With pointy teeth. Congratulations.

Nothing about the way we live our lives is “natural.” We live in huge concrete cities. We drive cars. We sh-t in toilets. We eat food that someone else produced that comes boxed and shrink wrapped from grocery stores. Were we “evolved” to live this way? Does it matter?

If you want to know what you “should” eat, don’t stand in front of a mirror and open wide. Try reading a book instead. Or, you know, read about all the excellent reasons to go vegan here on Vegan Soapbox.