The seasons are changing, allergens are everywhere, and every other person you talk to has a cold. Not to mention the fact that I attend classes at a public university, I work at a hospital, and my husband’s a teacher. Yup – it’s germ-fightin’ time.

It was bound to happen. It does about twice a year. You see, the other morning I woke up and both felt and sounded terrible. It was one of those mornings that when you say, "Good morning!" to your spouse, you both realize at the same time that your immune system clocked out overnight. You rush out to get some orange juice, barely last through your required daily commitments, and come home and crash on the couch with a bowl of soothing, homemade soup.

Fortunately, it’s the end of the week and I’m no worse for wear. In fact, I felt better the very next day! I’m sure it’s a combination of things, but I’m trying to convince myself it was my first homemade chicken noodle soup that cinched the deal. (Obviously, yes?)

Without further ado, the world’s easiest chicken noodle soup, ala crock pot. (Again, obviously, yes? I use crock pots like someone paid me to. Don’t I wish.)

Crock Pot Chicken Noodle Soup (serves 4-6)

• 3 stalks of celery, rinsed and diced
• 3 carrots, rinsed and diced
• 1/2 small onion, peeled and diced
• 3 chicken breasts (*mine were small, and you can use frozen or thawed)
• 1 bay leaf
• 6 cups of water
• 3/4 cup small pasta (*I used whole wheat angel hair pasta, broken into smaller pieces)
• salt and pepper to taste

Throw everything in a crock pot and cook on low for eight hours or on high for four to five hours. A half hour before you’re ready to eat, take the chicken breasts out of the crock pot and add in the pasta. Shred the chicken into smaller pieces, then add it back into the pot. Now’s the perfect time to sample the broth and season according to your personal tastes with salt and pepper. Once the pasta is cooked, you’re good to go!

P.S. If you want to eat immediately, you can pre-cook some pasta, and add it to the soup right as you get home.

Enjoy!

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By far my favorite class this semester is Food Science (both lecture and lab). Even if it’s competition were courses besides Anatomy & Physiology and Microbiology, I still think it would rank at the top. Last week in lab, part of our "experiment" was to create our own recipe of a vegetable juice! Naturally I got insanely excited. So much so, that I had to replicate our delicious juice at home and share with all of you!

This juice is carrot based, so we used five carrots (if they’re rather large, you can use four). I don’t peel them, but I chop off the ends and wash them.

For our something green – a handful of spinach. Plus some warming spice with that knob of ginger!

For sweet – half an apple (we used Red Delicious in lab and I used Fuji today) and two strawberries. I didn’t have any fresh strawberries, so I just thawed two frozen strawberries. Still works perfectly for juicing!

Once I juiced everything (I have a Breville Compact Juicer) I finished the drink of with a special twist that my instructor shared with me – a squeeze of lime. She said that she follows every juice with a tiny squeeze of fresh lime and that’s what takes every juice over the top. Being obsessed with limes, I had a suspicious feeling I would adore it, too. And I did. Between the tiny hint of berry with the two strawberries, the ginger, and the lime, I felt like I was drinking something super special and fancy! Not essentially drinking a multi-vitamin!

Pack it up in your cup and you’ll be good to go! Your body will readily absorb more nutrients since it doesn’t have to deal with the fruit/ vegetable fibers, and you’ll get a lot more nutrients faster than you would trying to eat everything.

I enjoyed mine alongside a tasty omelet of one egg, two egg whites, two tablespoons of salsa and a quarter of a diced avocado. Buonissimo!

Other juicing tips:

• Particularly if you’re new to juciing, ALWAYS juice some fruits with your veggies!
• Try garlic, ginger, and/ or citrus for more exciting flavor. You can even stir in some cinnamon, too!
• If you’re new to juicing, or if you have a very sensitive palate, start SLOWLY – don’t break off a huge knob of ginger to juice, because I guarantee it will be too spicy for ya!
• You can even juice things like raisins and walnuts! My instructor had this available to other groups, but because no one in my group was a huge fan of raisins and I’m deathly allergic to walnuts, we didn’t try it.
• If you’re juicing a whole citrus fruit, remove the rind and white pith. Just like with zesting – you’re not supposed to zest into the pith because it will give a bitter flavor – same goes for your juice! Plus, with some juicers, having to get through a huge citrus rind may be too much to handle. My juicer’s handbook also recommended to core things like apples, too.
• Even if you’re buying organic, always wash your produce right before using.

Happy juicing! What are some other delicious juicing recipes you’ve tried lately?

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Do you ever have a recipe that stays in your head? I do. I see a picture and read a recipe and I’m doomed. I have to make it. Which is why this cake is totally Jenna‘s fault. See, when I saw her recipe for Lemon Loaf Cake, I just could not get it out of my head. Breezy summer evenings with tall, frosty glasses of lemonade were stuck in my head. No wait – blackberry lemonade. Mmmm!

But there was one minor problem. See, I totally believe in using things like real butter and sugar, but I prefer to save it for special occasions. Combine the fact that there are no special occasions on the horizon with the fact I’ve been working hard at losing some chub, and well…post-calculating nutrition stats of the lemon loaf, I just couldn’t do it. So I improvised!

The new finished product still offers a refreshing citrus flavor, but brings in some healthier allies (Greek yogurt) in place of butter and lowers the sugar and flour. The result is a very dense, moist, light tangerine yogurt loaf cake.

Tangerine Yogurt Cake

Inspired by Jenna’s Lemon Loaf Cake and the Barefoot Contessa’s Lemon Yogurt Cake

• 1.5 cups plain, nonfat Greek yogurt
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/3 cup fresh squeezed tangerine juice
• zest from two tangerines
• 1.5 cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a loaf pan.

Combine Greek yogurt, eggs, sugar, and tangerine juice and zest. Mix in flour and baking powder. Pour into the prepared loaf pan. Bake for 60 minutes, or until a butter knife comes out clean after being inserted in the center of the cake.

Remove the cake from the oven. Let the cake cool in the loaf pan for ten minutes, then remove and finish cooling on a baking rack on the counter. Enjoy as is, or with some tangerine simple syrup (*see below) or whipped cream and more zest. Or maybe a white chocolate drizzle! Or white chocolate chips in the cake! White chocolate and tangerine sounds like a heavenly combination!

Careful though…while a lighter option, this cake is still quite tempting!

*Tangerine Simple Syrup

If you’d like to use up some more tangerines, simply combine one cup sugar and half a cup of tangerine juice (and zest if you’re feeling really….zesty). Bring to a boil over medium-high heat until you have your syrup! (Don’t boil too long/ let the temperature get too high, or else you’ll be making tangerine soft and hard candy!)

Nutrition Stats (per slice for 16 slices): 123 calories, 5.3g fat, 23.9g carb., 4.5g protein

(For 12 slices, each slice will be 164 calories per slice)

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A dark chocolate cookie that’s rich and deep in its layers of chocolate, yet not too terribly sweet. A tender crumb, retaining extra moistness from the use of only brown sugar for sweetener and an extra egg. A cookie packed with hot and melty pockets of chips that have you reaching for another….and another…and…..and….time for a run!

Does anything else really need to be said?

Deep Dark Chocolate Cookies

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 3 squares (1 ounce each) unsweetened chocolate, melted
• 1/4 c. semi-sweet chocolate, melted
• 1, 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 1 cup chocolate chips*

In your stand mixer, or a bowl with a hand mixer, cream the butter and brown sugar together. Mix in the eggs, vanilla, and melted chocolate. Stir in your dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa powder. If you’re feeling particularly needy, add the chocolate chips. In fact, just do it – you’re worth it. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 11-13 minutes.

If possible, try to deny the irresistible chocolate aroma long enough to cool the cookies so they won’t burn your tongue on contact.

*When I say 1 cup chocolate chips, I really mean use as many chocolate chips as you dang well please. I used a mix of semi-sweet minis and large bittersweet chips. Use whatever and however much you want! Just no nuts – they kill me.

You’re welcome.

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Plus, the way I figure it is that this is still an appropriate recipe. Y’all may have excess candy canes or peppermint bark that need a home!

Be warned though – it’s a very minty home! I can honestly take or leave mint, but Ross and his family are minty fans, so he convinced me to go with a peppermint bark cheesecake over a white chocolate cranberry cheesecake.

I think it was a winner. In fact – even the Grandmother that I mistakenly forgot wasn’t a fan of cheesecake was converted with this recipe! Hallelujah!

It was kind of therapeutic to go to town on the topping, too. I just splattered and drizzled chocolate to my heart’s content. That’s some arts and crafts I can get into!

The cheesecake is very rich and minty, so you don’t need a lot! Enjoy.

Peppermint Bark Cheesecake

(based off of Kraft Foods’ Philadelphia Classic Cheesecake recipe)

• 14 Oreo cookies, crushed (I used the chocolate stuffed ones…because someone has to eat the leftovers and those are my favorite!)
• 3 Tablespoons melted butter
• 4 packages Neufchatel (1/3 fat) cream cheese, softened
• 4 eggs
• ½ teaspoon pure peppermint extract
• 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste/ vanilla extract
• 1 cup sugar
• ½ cup crushed peppermint candy
• 1 batch peppermint bark (broken into small pieces)
• additional semisweet chocolate, white chocolate and crushed peppermint for topping (optional)

Mix crushed Oreos and melted butter and press into the bottom of a nine-inch spring form pan.

In your stand mixer, whip the Neufchatel cheese until a consistent texture. Add eggs, one at a time. Beat in the peppermint extract, vanilla bean paste, and sugar. Fold in the crushed peppermint candy and peppermint bark pieces. Pour into your prepared spring form pan.

Bake in a 325 degree oven for 60 minutes. Remove and let cool completely. Refrigerate.

If desired, melt some white and dark chocolate and liberally drizzle the top of the cheesecake with chocolate and crushed peppermint pieces.

Peppermint Bark Recipe

• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup white chocolate chips
• 1/2 teaspoon pure peppermint extract
• 1 Tablespoon canola oil
• 1/2 package of starlight mints, crushed

Melt the semisweet sweet chocolate chips, 1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract, and 1/2 tablespoon of canola oil. (To melt, you can use a double boiler, or microwave for 30 seconds at a time, stirring after each 30 seconds.) Spread thinly on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper. Chill until hardened (I popped mine in the freezer for a few minutes). Repeat with white chocolate. Before the white chocolate is cooled, quickly sprinkle the top of the bark with crushed peppermint. Cool and let harden, then break into small pieces!

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Pumpkin Buckwheat Granola

• 1/2 cup pumpkin puree (not the canned pumpkin pie filling)
• 2 T. maple syrup
• 1 T. canola oil
• 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 cup old fashioned oats
• 1/2 cup buckwheat
• 1/4 cup whole raw almonds

Combine your pumpkin, maple syrup, canola oil, pumpkin pie spice, and cinnamon. Stir in the oats, buckwheat, and almonds. Note that at this stage the mixture will be very moist and lumpy. Spread the mixture on the bottom of an ungreased 8 x 8-inch baking dish. Bake for 45 minutes at 325 degrees, stirring the granola every 15-20 minutes.

It was interesting to me, but the mixture was fairly sweet and spicy before I baked it, but those flavors became rather muted while it baked. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still quite delicious, I just may play with increasing the spices even more next time!

I did some rough calculations on nutrition and here’s what I got. For the entire batch, there is 1,023 calories, 208 grams of carbohydrates, 36 grams of protein, and 28 grams of fat. I typically use a quarter cup measuring cup as my scoop when I’m portioning out my granola, so with this batch I’d get around eight to ten servings. Per serving this means:

• 8 servings/ batch: 128 calories, 26 g carbohydrates, 4.5 g protein, 3.5 g fat
• 10 servings/ batch: 102 calories, 21 g carbohydrates, 3.6 g protein, 2.8 g fat

Love adding it for a little crunch and texture to smoothies and yogurt bowls!

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Unfortunately this usually makes us just want to go pick up soup and salad from Panera or a streaker burrito from Moe’s. While there’s nothing wrong with those things, I do enjoy making my own food. I feel better eating my own food, and most importantly, it’s a healthier and cheaper to make my own food!

I’m trying to get in the habit of making dishes that have larger yields and that can be made ahead and make great leftovers. Things that I can make ahead of time, warm up in the oven while I’m showering after a run, and then still have leftovers for lunches and dinners the next couple days. These vegan enchiladas are one of my new favorites!

And really – they are SO easy. The thing that takes the longest is cooking the lentils for the filling, but again – that is something that you can multitask during. Clean the kitchen, work on a chem lab report…perfectly multitask-able.

The filling is really simple. Just take the salsa-cooked lentils and throw in a can of fat free refried beans and a small can of diced green chilies, stir it up and that’s it! Roll ‘em up in some whole wheat tortillas and you’re good to go!

If you want to, you can top with an enchilada sauce of some sort, but I just used what I had – more salsa and some leftover cheddar Daiya cheese sprinkled over half the enchiladas.

You can either cover and store the enchladas as is now, or you can do what I did. I simply made the filling and set aside, and then quickly stuffed and rolled my enchiladas while my oven was preheating.

Pop ‘em in the oven for twenty minutes (maybe thirty if you refrigerated the whole dish for a while) and dinner is served.

 Vegan Enchiladas

• 1 cup lentils (measured dry)
• 1 cup salsa
• 1 can fat free refried pinto beans
• 1 small can diced chilies
• 1 package whole wheat tortillas (you’ll need eight – I used a whole wheat low carb tortilla, simply because they had 5 grams of protein and didn’t have 3975 calories per huge tortilla)
• 1 cup salsa (for topping – can use enchilada sauce instead)
• Daiya cheese (optional!)

1. Combine the lentils with a cup of salsa and 1.5 cups salsa in a medium sized saucepot and bring to a boil. Let simmer 25-30 minutes, or until all water has been absorbed and your lentils are tender.
2. Combine the cooked lentils with the refried beans and chilies.
3. Evenly divide your filling between the eight tortillas. Roll and place seam-side down in a lightly greased 9×13-inch baking dish.
4. Cover with another cup of salsa (can use more or less – make them how you will like them!) and Daiya cheddar cheese if you have some lying around.
5. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 25-30 minutes. Let cool a few minutes, then serve up and enjoy!

Nutrition

I did really basic calculations (and this does not include the Daiya!) but using the same tortillas (I believe Mission brand) it looks like each enchilada has about 238 calories and 15 grams of protein. Not bad, especially for a fast and easy vegan dinner!

Personal Vegan Note

Just wanted to remind new readers: I am not a vegan. I used to be, I enjoyed it, but now I enjoy being label free. I love making new vegan recipes though, and actually go days where I unintentionally go the whole day completely vegan. I’m open to all dietary choices, and hope you’ll respect mine too! One day I may have vegan enchiladas and the next a gourmet cheeseburger. I’m just making life work for me, y’all.

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Enter: Nature’s Pride Bread Ambassador contest.

Disclaimer: while the bread was on sale, I spent all $1.99 out of my own pocket.

Nature’s Pride is seeking six new Bread Ambassadors who will have the opportunity to showcase their unique recipes using Nature’s Pride breads at the Foodbuzz Taste Pavilion, and as a thank you for their participation, they’ll cover airfare and accommodations for their Bread Ambassadors!

Heck to the yes!

When I read this, I knew I had to make a recipe that was equal parts creative, crazy, delicious, simple, and eye-catching. Well, I think I’ve got it!

Chocolate Chip Bread Crumb Cookies

These cookies are ridiculous. First of all, they’re a fun, economical twist on a chocolate chip cookie. Run out of flour but have some bread on its last leg? Toast it up, grind it up, and voila – you now have a new means to make cookies using what you’ve got. Plus – they’re fun. I mean, bread crumb cookies? Who ever heard of such a thing? I certainly hadn’t! And the taste? Oh, the taste! While this recipe is not vegan, it’s based off of my top secret vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe (recently tried by Gina the Fitnessista!), so you know it’s good.

The star ingredient to these cookies is of course the Nature’s Pride bread. I chose one of their soft breads, the Honey Wheat Bread which besides a soft, tender texture and a subtly sweet flavor, also features no artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives, and no high fructose corn syrup.

The role of supporting actor has to go to my favorite chocolate chip of all time: Ghiradelli Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips. Hands down my favorite. Coincidentally, they’re also a 2010 Foodbuzz Blogger Festival Sponsor!

While your chocolate chips are out for munching (I fully endorse quality control taste testing ), start your cookies. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Then begin the process! (Ingredient measurements and step-by-step directions without pictures are at the bottom of the post.)

Start by creaming a half cup of butter or margarine, a third cup of white sugar, and a half cup of packed light brown sugar.

While creaming sugars and butter, I like to start on a low speed to combine the ingredients, and then bump the speed up to medium-high for a minute or two. You’ll know when it’s there because it will be just what it says – creamy.

Now’s a good point to toss your bread in a toaster (mine’s a dial setting, and I toasted it on level three). You want to toast your bread to a rich golden brown color for two reasons. One, to crisp and dry out the bread a bit to lend to a better crumb and two, because toasting the bread caramelizes the surface a bit, which brings out more sweetness in the bread.

While your honey wheat bread is toasting away, mix an egg and a teaspoon of pure vanilla extract into your creamed butter and sugar.

Now it’s time to make your bread crumbs! I took six slices of toast and tore them up into smaller pieces. Throw them into a high power blended or a food processor and work them for a bit until you get a relatively fine crumb. I used my Vita-Mix and it took a couple minutes of plunging the larger chunks back into the blade, but before I knew it, I had a great crumb!

It’s also good to note that if you’re like me and are using fresh bread, the bread will still be soft inside – that’s ok!

Stir in two cups of your bread crumbs, a half cup of whole wheat flour, a teaspoon of baking powder and an eighth of a teaspoon of salt (table salt or a fine sea salt) to your wet ingredients.

Once combined, stir in a half cup of your Ghiradelli Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips  until they’re evenly distributed throughout the batter.

Line two cookie sheets with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper. Spoon your batter by tablespoonfuls onto your baking mats (I literally spoon out the batter with my tablespoon measuring spoon). You should get exactly two dozen cookies.

Bake for nine to eleven minutes. I took the top sheet of cookies out after nine minutes, and moved the bottom sheet to the top for an additional two minutes to give them some equal browning. (Browning = more caramelization, which is the yummiest part!)

Let cool on the baking sheets for at least five minutes, and  carefully remove. The cookies are very tender and soft, so be careful!

Serve with a glass of skim milk or vanilla almond milk (whatever floats your boat!) and enjoy.

These cookies are so delicious. It was one of those recipes where I was holding my breath the entire time, because the recipe I thought of seemed too good to be true. It seemed to come together too easily. It made the perfect amount of cookies. Surely something would have to go wrong! But no.

You can taste the bread crumbs in the cookies, but it’s in an amazing way. Think along the lines of a chewy oatmeal cookie texture. Add that to the melted semi-sweet chocolate, the rich and buttery flavor, plus the complex caramelized flavors from the toasted bread and the brown sugar, and whoa. Just whoa. Please try them for yourself!

Nature’s Pride Chocolate Chip Bread Crumb Cookies (makes two dozen)

• 1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened at room temperature
• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 cups bread crumbs made from 5-6 slices of Nature’s Pride Honey Wheat Soft Bread toasted to a golden brown
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup Ghiradelli Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips

1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Cream your butter, white sugar and brown sugar with a hand mixer at low speed for 30 seconds, then medium-high speed for 1-2 minutes. Add your egg and vanilla and cream for another 30 seconds.
3. Toast your six slices of bread to a golden brown color. Tear into small pieces and grind to a relatively fine crumb in a food processor or high speed blender.
4. By hand, mix in your two cups of bread crumbs and your whole wheat flour, baking powder and salt into your wet ingredients. Stir in your chocolate chips.
5. Line two cookie sheets with silicone baking mats or parchment paper. Spoon tablespoonfuls of dough onto your cookie sheet (a dozen per sheet).
6. Bake for nine minutes, or until the cookies on the top rack are golden brown. Remove the top rack of cookies, and transfer the cookie sheet on the bottom rack to the top and bake for another two minutes. Remove when they are also golden brown.
7. Let cool for at least five minutes, then carefully remove from the cookie sheets. Enjoy!

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I’ve tried those vegan "macaroni and cheese" things before, that are really just runny nooch sauce covered pasta (nooch = nutritional yeast). Tasty in its own right, but not macaroni and cheese.

Then this past week in my Food Production Lab, we got to experiment making different white sauces (roux) with different thicknesses, and had to use one of the sauces as a base for macaroni and cheese.

Yes, I just said we made Macaroni and Cheese in a lab. It gets better, though. This week we get to make Oatmeal Cookies, and later in the semester we have a lab entitled "Holiday Baking"!

Which is why I think my sister is annoyed. I get to make things like Oatmeal Cookies in one of my labs and last week she was dissecting the neck on her cadaver in her gross anatomy class. Have fun, Meggie!

In my defense, it really is important that us future Registered Dietitians know how to prepare different foods, because how else are you going to tell your patients and clients how to make the healthy foods you’re telling them to eat?

However, I was a little surprised at some of the ingredients we used in the lab, because I know that in my personal kitchen I would healthify them a bit further.  (Yes, regular readers should know that healthify is indeed a verb over here on Sound Eats.)

Things like almond milk instead of whole milk, Earth Balance instead of butter,whole wheat flour instead of all purpose flour, whole wheat macaroni instead of durum wheat….

…cheddar Daiya instead of sharp cheddar cheese…

As soon as I remembered that there was a cheddar daiya, it was all over. I knew I had to make a Lindsey-fied vegan Mac and Cheese!

And since I was making my own recipe from scratch, I could alter things as I saw fit, like the ingredients, flavors, consistency of sauce, volume of sauce to pasta, etc.

So after some careful calculations and research, I came up with the vegan macaroni and cheese recipe you see below.

It’s easily customizable, as you can do things like use onion instead of garlic, or omit or change out the herbs.

You could also increase the amount of sauce or decrease the amount of pasta, and add some other fun mix-ins, like tomato, peas, spinach, broccoli, etc.

Your options are endless!

So feel free to play with the core recipe as you see fit.

And as always, let me know if you try it and what you think!

Garlic and Herb Vegan Mac and Cheese (serves 4-8, depending on use as entree or side)

• 1 cup whole wheat elbow macaroni (measured dry)
• 3 Tablespoons Earth Balance (or other butter substitute)
• 3 Tablespoons whole wheat flour
• 1 cup unsweetened plain/ original almond milk
• 1/4 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon dry mustard powder
• 1 Tablespoon minced garlic
• 2 Tablespoons fresh herbs, minced (I used what I had in my patio garden – basil, oregano and sage)
• 1.5 cups cheddar daiya (I find it in with the refrigerated cheeses at Whole Foods and other health stores)

1. Prepare the pasta according to the package directions (typically: boil water, add salt to flavor (optional), add pasta, boil for 6-8 minutes).
2. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees, grease a circular casserole dish(about 8-inch diameter) and mince your garlic and herbs if they’re not minced already.
3. Melt your Earth Balance in a small sauce pan over medium-high heat. Once the "butter" is melted, add your whole wheat flour and whisk thoroughly for one to two minutes.
4. Slowly add the almond milk, whisking all the while. Continue to whisk for another five minutes (approximately) or until the roux is thickened and bubbling.
5. Add your salt, pepper, mustard powder, garlic, herbs and daiya cheddar cheese. Keep stirring until the daiya has melted evenly into the roux (white sauce).
6. Meanwhile, your pasta should be done and have been strained. Pour the pasta into the cheese sauce and disperse evenly.
7. Pour the macaroni and cheese into your baking dish and bake for 20 to 30 minutes, or until bubbling along the edges. (In typical non-vegan macaroni and cheese, the top of the mac and cheese will bubble and get browned, but I notice this reaction doesn’t chemically take place with the daiya.)
8. Let cool for ten minutes, serve, and enjoy.

Note: for my fellow healthy living bloggers, please see our latest post on changes being made to HLB, including the fact that HLB is no longer a free resource.

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It’s vegan. 

I know. Wait! Please don’t leave and think I’m depriving myself (and my "poor husband") in some way by thinking a vegan pizza is the creamiest, best pizza I’ve had. Just give me a chance! No, give this pie a chance!

This pizza was inspired by a pizza Ross and I tried at Mellow Mushroom on a date night a few weeks ago. We tried the Greek pizza, sans pepperocinis, with vegan cheese instead of the two cheeses and with tofu instead of chicken. I was practically moaning as I inhaled the pizza on the Mellow Mushroom patio – it was that good. I had to make my own.

We start easy. Actually almost lazy, as I didn’t even bother making my own dough. We forego the traditional red sauce and instead go with a garlic white sauce. Simply spread a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil and half a tablespoon (1.5 teaspoons) of crushed garlic all over the pizza.

Then comes this cheese that’s taken the vegan world by storm: daiya mozzarella style shreds.

To be honest, it doesn’t look like much when you’re first looking at it and spreading it on your pizza. Just wait though! You have to turn up the heat before the magic really happens.

Top with chopped black olives, tomato, and tofu. If you can’t get enough garlic in your life sprinkle garlic powder over the whole doughy, creamy mess.

Then invite the magic of the oven to transform your pie.

But wait – we’re not stopping there! It does get better. Fill a sandwich baggie with a couple tablespoons of hummus (garlic hummus of course – what else?!) and cut off the tip to make a hummus piping bag.

Swirl hummus over the whole pizza as fast as you possible can so you can get this beast in your belly faster.

Slice and boom. Best. Pizza. Of. Your. Life. Creamy, melty, garlicky, doughy, salty, chewy, crisp….seriously like a vegan pizza alfredo, if there ever was such a thing.

Just make it. Sooner than later. Then thank me.

Vegan Pizza Alfredo (makes 8 slices)

• 1 pound of pizza dough (most dough is already vegan, but if you’re not making it yourself, be sure to check the ingredient list)
• 1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 Tablespoon crushed garlic (1/2 Tablespoon = 1.5 teaspoons)
• 1 cup daiya mozzarella style shreds
• 1/4 cup chopped black olives
• 1/2 cup chopped tomato
• 1/4 cup of diced tofu (I used an eighth of a block of Nasoya Light Firm Tofu – my favorite!)
• garlic powder
• 2 Tablespoons garlic hummus

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Roll out your dough onto a pizza stone or baking sheet. Spread the olive oil and garlic evenly over the dough. Top with a cup of daiya cheese, followed by your toppings and a sprinkle of garlic powder over the whole pie. Bake your pizza for twelve minutes. Remove your pie from the oven. Fill a small sandwich bag with two tablespoons of garlic hummus. Snip one end of the bag (about a centimeter diameter) and pipe the hummus on to your pizza in a spiral. Cut into eight slices and enjoy.

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