Truffle Mac 'n Cheese Stuffed Heirloom Tomato

When I see fancy adult mac 'n cheese on menus, it's always some kind of truffle mac 'n cheese. So, I thought, why not make that vegan. To be honest, this cheese sauce was pretty good compared to my other disastrous vegan cheese sauces I have made in the past. I was starting to think I'd never get a good mac 'n cheese sauce down. This was a very tasty dinner!

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Truffle Mac 'n Cheese Stuffed Heirloom Tomato

* Prep Time: 10 minutes
* Cook Time: 40 minutes
* Ingredients (for mac 'n cheese):

• 1 (13.25 oz) box whole wheat elbow noodles
• 5 tbsp vegan butter*
• 1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 4 tbsp sweet rice flour*
• 2 cup non-dairy milk*
• 1 tbsp tahini
• 2 tbsp nutritional yeast
• 1 tsp dijon mustard
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg, freshly grated*
• 3 tbsp dry white wine*
• 1/4 tsp paprika
• 1/2 tsp tumeric
• 1/2-1 tsp white truffle oil*
• salt and pepper, to taste

* Ingredients (for breadcrumb topping):

• 1/3 cup Italian breadcrumbs*
• 1 tsp fresh basil, chopped
• salt and pepper, to taste
• olive oil, to taste
• 5 heirloom tomatoes (or more)*

* Recipe:

Instagram Photo (User: veganmiss)

1. In a pot, cook the elbow noodles in salted water until al dente. Strain, run cool water over then, set aside.
2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
3. In a deep skillet, add 1 tbsp of the vegan butter and cook the onions until translucent over medium heat. Add the garlic and continue cooking for another few minutes until garlic browns. Remove from pan and set aside.
4. Add the remaining 4 tbsp of vegan butter to the skillet and the sweet rice flour. Whisk the butter and flour mixture with a whisk (easier than using a fork or spoon).
5. When combined, slowly add the 2 cups of non-dairy milk a little at a time, stirring with whisk continuously.
6. Add the remaining ingredients and continue whisking. Bring to a slight boil, then reduce to low heat (continue whisking so not to get clumps). The sauce should be thick and similar to regular mac 'n cheese sauce at this point. 
7. In a bowl, add the cooked noodles. Laddle the cheese sauce a bit at a time to the noodles and mix until well combined. Add as much of the cheese sauce as desired, but not too much as to make it soupy. Add the onions and garlic and mix.
8. In a smaller bowl, combine the topping ingredients (exclude the tomatoes). Add enough olive oil just to make the crumbs stick.  
9. Cut the top of each tomato and take out the core. Add the mac 'n cheese to the tomatoes then top with the breadcrumb mixture.
10. Place tomatoes on a small baking dish. Also place the tomato tops in the dish, but not on top of the stuffed tomatoes yet. Drizzle everything with a bit of olive oil.
11. Put in oven and let bake for about 5-10 minutes until you notice the breadcrumbs starting to brown. Remove from oven and using a fork, add the tomato tops back to the tomatoes covering the breadcrumbs. Return to the oven and let bake for another 5-10 minutes or until the tomatoes seem soft and baked. If it seems like it is taking a while, put the oven on a high broil and broil for 2 minutes or until the tomatoes look done.
12. Top the baked tomatoes with vegan Parmesan, sea salt, and fresh chopped basil.

* Note: For vegan butter, I used Earth Balance olive oil version. Sweet rice flour can be found in the Asian section of your grocery store. You could try using regular all-purpose flour in this, I would imagine, but the sweet rice flour is good because it has a gelatinous effect that will make the sauce more "cheesy". For non-dairy milk, I used almond milk as that is what I prefer. You could use ground nutmeg, I just happened to have it fresh. Make sure your white wine is vegan! White truffle oil is something that a little goes a long way. Be sparing. Some Italian breadcrumbs contain dairy in them so be sure to check the label. I used Whole Foods brand. Originally, I was going to make this with panko breadcrumbs, but I was out. I still think it would have been better with panko! You may need more tomatoes than what I suggest here. I only made 2 at the time and then two mini bowls baked (using only half of the cooked noodles and a lot of cheese sauce left over). You could make a casserole if you just don't want to keep putting it in tomatoes. 

Vegan Chicago: Restaurant Review of Soul Vegetarian East

Like many other Groupon users, I waited until the last night to use my Groupon to Soul Vegetarian East Restaurant over on the south side of Chicago. There are a number of soul vegetarian type restaurants on the south side, but this one is the most talked about and the oldest. Other restaurants include: Sistah's Vegan Restaurant, Brother Tim's Vegetarian Fast Food, and Yah's Cuisine. 

Both times I've been to Soul Veg the wait has been awfully long. I will admit the first time was also with a Groupon within a week of it expiring and this last time was the night it expired, so my wait time may have been altered due to that. From reading Yelp reviews, though, it seems like the service is always pretty slow and the servers are rather scatter-brained. 

Aside from the restaurant, there is a juice bar and a take out bar. The take out bar has various kinds of salads, seitan, greens, etc. The juice bar is pretty much your standard juice bar with carrot juices, green juices, and additives of wheatgrass and spirulina.

Before I begin, let me just say that this is southern cooking. It isn't healthy, even if it is vegetarian. A lot of it is fried or it is made of seitan. They do have salads which are pretty awesome. More on that later.

To start, my friends and I split the battered cauliflower. Pretty much most vegetables battered and fried are tasty and the cauliflower didn't disappoint in this aspect. It is definitely something to be split among 3-4 people, though, because it would be too much fried food for just two people. Other appetizers on the menu are more battered things like mushrooms, onion rings, fries, and tidbits (seitan).

We got a side of carrot supreme salad which was absolutely amazing. If you get anything at this restaurant, get this salad. For $4.50, it could have been a meal! It was gigantic and packed full of awesome veggies. We got the creamy garlic dressing with it and I'm thinking they use fresh garlic because it was super garlicky, but the creaminess balanced it out.

For sandwiches, we had the East Coast BBQ Roast Sandwich and the Hand Burger. The BBQ sandwich was as to be expected: messy. They use their signature seitan tidbits and coat them in their own bbq sauce. Overall, it's a good kind of messy sandwich. I'd get this again for sure. My friend had the Hand Burger and he said it's the best veggie burger he's ever had (and he's an omnivore)! It is made out of lentils and various spices. My only problem with the sandwiches are that they come with no sides. It feels a bit like an incomplete meal to just have a sandwich. Of course, you can order a side, but you get what I mean. The last time I was at Soul Veg, I got the gyros and I didn't care for them too much. It was too dry for my taste. They sell their Jerusalem Steak sandwich and Tofu Salad Sandwich at the local Whole Foods here and those are pretty good even pre-packaged. I imagine having them fresh at the restaurant is even better. 

My other friend had the dinner special. This dinner was something like $12 and for that price, there was SO much food. All three of us could have eaten this for dinner and been stuffed. It came with greens, steamed broccoli, breaded tofu (think catfish fillet style), a whopping piece of lasagna, and a choice of soup or salad (he got the soup, bean curd veggie, with fresh cornbread). I've had the greens from Soul Veg before and I always find them a bit too musky from the liquid smoke they use. I only use a pinch of it when I make greens and that may be why (if I even use it). Otherwise, they are perfect. The steamed broccoli was pretty standard, tender and healthy. Now, this breaded tofu business. Wow, you would think it was real breaded catfish strips the way they have it done up. I've never had breaded fish like that in my life (what? I grew up in San Francisco. Fresh fish from the ocean... who breads that?!). One of my friends who was with me is from the south and the other grew up eating breaded catfish and both of them were as impressed as I was with the breaded tofu. They have a breaded tofu sandwich and I bet that thing is amazing. The lasagna was alright. I didn't love it or hate it, but I wouldn't order it again. Just wasn't my thing - something about the taste of it. My friends liked it though. Lastly, the soup and cornbread were really tasty. I've never had bean curd soup before (I've had bean curd in Chinese dishes at restaurants before, though) and this was a great introduction. The cornbread passed the Southerners test from my friend meaning it was pretty damn good.

We had tons of food and took a lot of it home so we couldn't possibly have dessert. I had a Beta Green juice drink from the juice bar, so I suppose that was my dessert (carrot and spirulina juice). They do have soy ice cream and a variety of cakes and pies for dessert, though.

Our fair city of Chicago is blessed with the Vegan Food Truck. It is run by the people over at Ste Martaen (one of the best vegan cheese companies out there, trust!) and Soul Veg. You can get a number of Soul Veg's sandwiches and entree's on the food truck. Also on the truck are goodies from Canary Confectionery, a local vegan baking team. It is run during lunch and dinner hours and their menu changes daily. Find them in the city or request they come to your area through their Twitter account or Facebook account. They also sometimes make Saturday day trips up to Milwaukee. Check their Twitter and Facebook to find out when.

One last note: the Soul Veg mac 'n cheese. Aside from their carrot salad, this stuff is addictive. It is, hands down, the best vegan mac 'n cheese I have ever had. I challenge someone to find a better one. Seriously, this stuff will change your life.

Vegan Chicago: Mercy For Animals Feed-In

This past weekend, I held a feed-in for Mercy For Animals in the Wicker Park area of Chicago. Ste Martaen and the Vegan Food Truck folks helped us out by catering sample sizes of BBQ seitan and vegan mac 'n cheese. The feed-in was pretty successful considering the bitter cold (below freezing!). Not as many people showed up as I had hoped, so we did not have anyone holding our usual colorful banner that reads, "Free Vegan Samples". We had two people passing out the samples with a leafleter near them and then others leafleting the remaining corners of the street cross section.

The food was well received with many people curious about non-dairy mac 'n cheese. One man was quite hesitant but I urged him to just try it out and he was quite surprised that it tasted like "real" mac 'n cheese. His buddies then followed in suit by taking samples as well. Many people also asked where one can get more vegan food like this and of course we told them all about the vegan-friendly options in Chicago. Ste Martaen packaged these samples in a great way. Instead of the activists using gloves and passing out the food, they came in prepackaged containers eliminating this need for gloves and food prep. People could just take a sample, stick it in their pocket, and eat it later if they wanted. This really helped with peoples desire to take the food, I think.

 

Leafleting went well. We passed out more leaflets than food it seemed like totaling 300 MFA Compassionate Choices. Actually, the leafleting went more smoothly than the feed-in aspect of this event. We met a lot of fellow vegetarians and vegans who were excited to see MFA out doing this event.

Overall, great event and thank you for those who came out during this super cold Saturday in Chicago! Also, many thanks to VegFund for funding this feed-in.

For more information on how to host your own feed-in in your city, please check out Mercy For Animals guide. If you live in Chicago and would like to get involved with MFA, please email me at AlexisS@MercyForAnimals.org.

And how could I post an entry about giving away free, delicious BBQ seitan and mac 'n cheese without posting some recipes? For a stellar mac 'n cheese recipe, check out this one on VegWeb. Also, check out my BBQ seitan recipe here. 

Mac and Beer Cheese Soup

So, I post a lot of "vegan junk food" recipes on here mostly because I enjoy veganizing the impossible, so to speak. This leads me to believe I am not too self reflective of my personal diet on here! These recipes I post on Vegan Miss are mostly fun weekend projects. Now, because I feel I've done too much junk stuff in the recent past (with the exception of maybe my raw kale salad which I am truly obsessed with), I've committed myself to making a few salad posts coming soon. Be on the look out!


Mac and Beer Cheese Soup

* Prep Time: 10 minutes
* Cook Time: 30 minutes
* Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp soy butter*
• 1/3 small white onion, chopped
• 1 large carrot, chopped
• 1 1/2 large stalk celery, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup broccoli, chopped
• 1/4 cup vegan bacon, chopped*
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 3 1/2 cup vegetable broth
• 1/3-1/2 cup lager*
• 1 1/3 cup elbow macaroni
• 1 1/2 cup almond milk (+ 1/3 cup almond milk)*
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour, mixed with the 1/3 cup almond milk until lumps gone
• 1 10 oz. roll of vegan melting cheddar cheese*
• vegan Parmesan, to top, optional*

* Recipe:

1. In a large pot on medium heat, let the butter melt. Add the onions and cook until they become translucent.
2. Next, add the carrots, celery, garlic, broccoli, bacon, salt, and pepper. Cook until the become soft.
3. Add the vegetable broth, beer, macaroni, milk, and flour mixture; stir. Cook for about 10 minutes.
4. Lastly, add the cheese and mix well. Simmer on low for five minutes. Top with vegan Parmesan if desired.

* Note: For soy butter, I used Earth Balance with olive oil (my personal favorite kind of their brand). For vegan bacon, I used Upton's Naturals vegan bacon. Alas, one can not buy it in stores. It is for food vendors only, though I get it through the Chicago Vegan Co-Op. One could use Lightlife brand instead. Make sure the lager is vegan on Barnivore. Of course, one could also just take out the beer all together if one wants. Almond milk is just what I happen to prefer. Use any sort of non-dairy milk you like. The melting cheddar cheese I used was Teese brand. I'm sure one could cook down Soy Kaas or even Follow Your Heart. Lastly, the optional Parmesan I would suggest is Galaxy topping.