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Week 45: 

RECIPE OF THE WEEK FROM CO-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR LISA WALKER FEATURES VEGAN MAC & CHEESE

I am not vegan, I’m not even vegetarian, but I am trying to reduce the amount of animal products my family and I consume. Sometimes it’s very easy to replace traditional foods with plant-based products, for example, burger night in our house now consists of Impossible Burgers or Beyond Burgers instead of beef burgers. I have also replaced the ground beef in our tacos and in our Bolognese with Beyond or Impossible beef – something that went completely unnoticed by my husband and children until one day (a year into the “experiment”) I finally told them!

So, beef really hasn’t been a problem but I love cheese, in fact if you ask my husband he will tell you that I put cheese on everything (I plead the 5th). So when I started looking into vegan mac & cheese recipes I was skeptical, but I was also intrigued. I experimented with a few different recipes, most of which I found on Instagram. I wasn’t in love with any until I found this recipe from Rainbow Plant Life. My other favorite plant-based food bloggers include Elavegan.com and Ohsheglows.com. For those of you who follow Highfield’s Culinary Director Gail Blakely, Gail wrote about a fantastic vegan spicy turmeric lentil soup from Oh She Glows, and it’s totally worth checking out.

Whether your lifestyle is vegan or you are just sticking your toe in the water, I hope you try this vegan butternut squash mac & cheese and be sure to check out Highfield’s newest culinary instructor Michelle Iztkowitz. Michelle has some wonderful plant-based cooking classes on the upcoming culinary schedule. Bon Appetit!