Last Thanksgiving was one of my favorites of late, thanks to my cousin Kelly. Kelly and her husband host our family gathering in Philadelphia every year. Philly is my mom’s hometown, so she usually flies up for the occasion and cooks up her famous chitterlings. And I used to eat up the chitterlings and all of the traditional Soul Food fixing, until I became vegan.

Last year, I still attended the family gathering, but was not sure what I was going to eat. I started to order food from a local vegan restaurant in NYC and take it with me, but I ran out of time. Thankfully, my cousin Kelly, who is a fantastic cook, had been experimenting with a lot of vegan recipes. I asked her if she would make some vegan versions of traditional Soul Food fixing for me and she said yes!

Thanks to cousin Kelly, I had vegan mac and cheese, collard greens, stuffing, and pasta salad. And as I said, Kelly can burn, so the food was delicious.

With that experience in mind… we are here to assure you, that your holiday means can be vegan, and just as delicious as before. We are excited to kick off a special series just in time for the holidays. Before we know it, it will be time for us to gather around the table to celebrate with family and friends. And that can be tough when you are the only vegan in the room… and that’s if you are the guest or the host.

To help you out, we are going to feature a vegan holiday recipe every Meatless Monday. That should give you plenty of time to plan your menu and put together your shopping list.

This week… mac and cheese. For this we are featuring one of our favorite vegans, Donna Green Goodman, who is also a great home cook. She has her own youtube cooking class where the focus is flavor and healthy ingredients. Here is a link to her episode in which she shares her mac and cheese recipe. I hope you’ll give this one a try. Happy cooking!

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