Monday, October 15 Southwestern Mac & Cheese (Forks Over Knives) and Collards Rating: 3.5

We’ve been eating a lot of processed and less than healthy foods lately and wanted to get back on track with a more wholesome diet. I just recently got the new Forks Over Knives book so I figured that would be a good place to start. I like macaroni casseroles with lots of stuff in them, so I thought this recipe looked like a good place to start. The casserole contains black beans, corn, bell pepper, onion and so on. The cheese sauce is different from any vegan cheese sauce I’ve made. It’s bell pepper, onion, nooch, tahini and salt to taste. I’ll start with the sauce. It’s actually pretty good, but a little sweeter than I generally like. I added a dash of tamari to salt it up a little more. I think I used more macaroni than I should have, so the finished casserole wasn’t as cheesy as I’d hoped. It makes a ton, so I should probably take this as a lesson to make half sized casseroles going forward, especially if it’s the first time I’m making it. It’s not that this is a bad recipe, not at all, I just think it needs a little something and I’m not sure what. It gets bonus points for being a healthy almost all-in-one dish meal. We also wanted green veggies, so I made some collards. Well, I made them for Seth; I can’t stand them. I use the recipe in The Vegan Soul Food Guide to the Galaxy as a guide. I meant to put some kale with garlic dressing on my plate but forgot about it and we were hungry so we just went with what was ready to go. Not my best night, but not a total fail either. I guess after the victory of the night before I was entitled to a less than stellar performance.