Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Yet another failed attempt at a dairy-free alternative

Last night we had tuna mac casserole for dinner, something akin to this. I added half a bag of frozen broccoli, cauliflower, carrot mix to my pasta for the last couple minutes it was cooking and then added the pasta and veggies to the cheese sauce along with some tuna and extra shredded cheddar before I baked in the oven to melt some cheese on top. Easy, inexpensive ($3 for dinner, max) and actually pretty delicious. Probably not remotely healthy, however. But, better than plain old mac n' cheese.
Obviously, my kids can't eat this (the Bug wouldn't ever dream of eating it), so I tried to come up with some dairy-free alternative for DD. The last time I made this, I tried to duplicate it by melting a Toffuti American cheese slice in with the noodles and a tiny bit of tuna. If you've ever tried to melt Toffuti cheese, you know that it tends to be a bit on the oily side. I actually thought it melted and mixed in not too badly, but BooBoo disagreed.
Last night I opted to make her a tuna pasta salad with mayo and some veggies mixed in. Again, BooBoo disagree with my choice of dairy-free alternative and ate soy yogurt instead. (FYI - if you or your child has a dairy allergy, Silk soy yogurt is made with L. casei - a milk derivative. Fortunately, for my kids, this is not enough of a source of dairy to upset their systems unless they eat it every night for a week ... which has happened.) I always have a big container of soy yogurt on hand for occasions just like this. The Bug is super picky, so it comes in handy often. He ate a dairy-free Van's blueberry waffle and soy yogurt for dinner last night. I actually thought that was pretty good for him.
So, that is how dinner in the No Moo for You household. Each night holds a new discovery and we never really know what we're going to find out.

No comments:

Post a Comment