Week 2, Day 1: Breakfast Bars, Mac & "Cheese"

Today we started with a recipe from Flying Apron's gluten-free and vegan cookbook for "Berry Oat Wondie Bars". I'd write the recipe here but I'm not sure what the rules are for posting other people's recipes. These bars are awesome! It's basically gluten-free oats, brown rice syrup and fresh berries and tastes like granola when you cook it. We used blackberries, strawberries and raspberries. 6 yr old loved it, and so did my husband. 2 yr old wasn't interested in trying it.



For lunch, my daughter requested mac and cheese again, so I made it for her, happy she will eat it. She had that with a side of our new-found potato chips from yesterday, and some mango and peach.



Here's the recipe for the macaroni and cheese. It's a standard vegan one that I picked up years ago and adjusted for our new restrictions. Does this version taste just like regular mac n cheese? I don't think so, but it's been a while since I've had a non-vegan version. My 2 yr old loves it more than regular mac and cheese, and my husband likes it too.

The original recipe includes 2 TB soy sauce, but since we're off soy I omitted it, but if you can use soy sauce, the recipe is better for it. (Update: we are now using Coconut Secret's Coconut Aminos as a soy sauce replacement and it works great!)

I package gluten-free pasta.

1/2 cup Earth Balance soy-free vegan butter (or canola oil)
1/2 cup gluten-free flour
3 to 3 1/2 cups boiling water (depending on desired thickness)
2 TB coconut aminos (or soy sauce)
1 1/2 tsp garlic salt (or fresh garlic)
1 1/2 tsp sea salt
dash of turmeric
1 cup nutritional yeast (large flakes)
1/4 cup oil
dash of paprika

Cook pasta to desired tenderness and drain. Set aside.

Heat butter with flour over medium low heat. Whisk together until thickens, then add water, coconut aminos, garlic salt, sea salt, turmeric. Cook until thick and bubbles, then add nutritional yeast and oil. Adjust thickness using water and nutritional yeast.

Once sauce is to desired thickness, add rice noodles (or noodles of your choice). I usually stop the recipe here, but if you're in the mood for a casserole, put your cooked noodles in 9x13 casserole pan, pour about half of the cheese sauce over the noodles and mix together. Once mixed, pour the remaining cheese over the top of the noodles and sprinkle with paprika. Bake for 15 minutes at 350. Put in broiler to brown "cheese".

For dinner, I tried butternut squash slices, cooked with olive oil, salt and pepper. They were soft and mild-tasting, but not a hit with either child. I should have heated at a higher temperature until it turned golden brown as instructed, but 2 yr old was asking repeatedly to eat, so I just called it done and served it.

The green smoothie went over pretty well with the kids (pineapple/strawberry/banana/kale/ice/protein powder). I made a tahini/dill/lemon/olive oil sauce that I loved on my salad. 6 yr old didn't like it, 2 yr old liked it over his slivered carrots, for a few bites (he thought it was hummus).



My husband took some of the leftover squash and pan-fried it with more salt and pepper, and it tasted like french fries. The kids were already asleep, but I'm pretty sure they would have liked it.