Cheezy Rice and Broccoli Casserole

This is the cheezy rice and broccoli casserole from Joanne Stepaniak's The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook. I tried to make this once before and, due to a momentary lapse in my critical reading skills, totally ruined the recipe. The recipe calls for either umeboshi paste or salt. You aren't supposed to use the same amount of salt as you would umeboshi paste. In fact, it rather clearly says "or salt, to taste." I missed that "to taste" instruction on that ill-fated attempt and had to throw out the incredibly salty mess I had made. This time I followed the directions much better. And the result was tasty. Cheezy enough for me, but I don't know if it would taste cheesy to a non-vegan.

Lots O' Food

Valentine's Day dessert. Brownies from theppk.com and caramel sauce from the Vegan Chef (the recipe is on there as Vegan Caramel Sauce...the site doesn't let me directly link to the recipe). I've made the caramel sauce before and really like it. This time I used dark brown sugar by Wholesome Sweeteners. I think I liked it a little better with a lighter brown sugar, but it was still good. The brownie recipe was a little too cakey for me, but I am generally a fan of fudgy, non-cakey brownies, so that doesn't mean anything was wrong with the brownies. And I could ignore the cakey-ness with the sauce on top!


Jerk Seitan, from Vegan With a Vengeance. Not a pretty picture, but a tasty dish. Green peppers + onions = mmmmm. I made the seitan from scratch. I used the other half of the batch for spring rolls on Valentine's Day. Why I didn't take pictures of said spring rolls, I don't know.


Stuffed Shells. We love these and I've made them several times, but just as I was about to eat this last night, it occurred to me that I've never taken a picture. I don't follow an exact recipe. It's loosely based on the Baked Stuffed Shells recipe from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook (well, I follow the baking instructions, at least). We like soy cheese melted on top, but this is only baked at 350 degrees. It's hard to get soy cheese to melt at that low of a temperature. I heat some plain soymilk on the stovetop, whisk in the grated soy cheese and whisk until it is melted (I also added in a bit of nutritional yeast, since the soy milk tones down the soy cheesiness a bit). Once the soy cheese is melted, I add a couple of tablespoons of flour and whisk until the mixture thickens. I then pour the mixture over the stuffed shells. You can see some of the cheesy sauce on the left side of the picture.