FOOD FIGHT FRIDAY|SOUL/SOUTHERN COMFORT FOOD-VEGANIZED

Food FightFriday sure does come around quickly, before I know it, it is here. This weeks focus is on cooking healthy soul food, no meat. Gotta love @fff.

The South has a rich history of foods rooted in the culture of African-Americans during slavery. The food was prepared with poor cuts of meat, if any and scraps left from meals at the plantation. These poor cuts of meats were usually fat back, salt pork, or any unwanted part of the hog or cow. These foods evolved over the centuries into foods that were a little bit healthier.

When I became health conscience, I tried to cook foods that were healthier. When I cooked greens, cabbage, or kale I would use smoked turkey instead of pork. But when it came to other comfort foods, I still used real butter, heavy cream, and 3 different cheeses in my macaroni & cheese. My candied yams were loaded with real butter, white granulated and brown sugar. My cornbread was prepared with flour, eggs, cornmeal, white granulated sugar, and butter. These foods are alright if eaten occasionally, but not for everyday. All this saturated fat is very unhealthy especially when a lot of salt is added to the diet.

I love soul/comfort food, but I now have to prepare it based on the paleo diet or a vegan diet. The other day while grocery shopping, I found a box of macaroni made from rice and corn flour, paleo no, vegan yes. I bought some Daiya Vegan cheddar cheese plus I had my vegan cheese sauce. This was the beginning of my new macaroni & cheese.

I had a head of cabbage, carrots, and other vegetables that I could use, since I couldn't add any meat to the greens. I also had 4 sweet potatoes that I could use to make healthy candied yams. When ever I have greens, I have to have cornbread, paleo no, vegan no. So I decided to make hot water cornbread.

Now I was ready to start preparing my vegan soul food dinner.

I chopped the carrots, bell peppers, celery, and onion, then shredded the cabbage.

Next I sauteed the veggies in olive oil in a 7 quart pot, then added the cabbage a little at a time. No water needed, because cabbage makes it own water. The seasonings I used were season all, organic no salt seasoning, I cooked cabbage until they were soft and limp and still crunchy.

While the cabbage simmered, I layered the potatoes with coconut sugar in a deep pan.

I cooked them until they were fork tender. I melted some ghee and added some cinnamon, vanilla, and nutmeg to the ghee and poured it over the potatoes.

Now it was time to create my new mac & cheese. I boiled the pasta according to the directions on the package. While the pasta was boiling, I sauteed some onions in 2 tbls. of ghee.

When the onions were translucent, I set side about 2 tbsps. I added the drained pasta to the onions and ghee. I added some season all, my vegan cheese, almond milk, garlic and onion powder, and more ghee. I added the Daiya cheese on top and baked in oven at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes.

It was ready when the Daiya cheese melted and it was hot and bubbly.

On to the cornbread. What I made is called Hot Water Cornbread. I added 1 cup of cornmeal, 1 tsp. of season all, and some of the sauteed onions to a bowl. I pour boiling hot water over the cornmeal mixture and stirred until it formed a dough. Then I formed 3 inch patties with the dough and fried them in a little olive oil until they were lightly browned on each side.

This was my vegan soul food dinner. I was not looking for the food to taste like the high fat and meat based foods. I wanted my food to taste great on it's own as a vegan meal. Dinner was amazing, my husband kept complimenting me on a delicious meal. That's what it is all about, someone enjoying what you have created or cooked.