And herein lies the challenge.

By no recognizable definition of the word am I a cook. There are many wonderful cooks in my family. Women who can throw together fabulous meals without so much as a hint of a recipe. I got the short end of the spatula when it came to the chef genes.  For my first night of meat free living, I chose a stand by comfort, macaroni and cheese. Or more precisely  Bombproof Baked Macaroni Casserole.  A friend gave me the recipe. It is from the book The Clueless Vegetarian by Evelynn Raab.  Since I rarely follow a recipe to the letter, and since I am not sure about violating copyright laws, I'll post the recipe as I made it.  There was a fairly major good on my part. I tend to want to take the easy way. Instead of making my own bread crumbs, I bought them. Probably not an issue normally but I bought the very fine ones....lets just say...what a mess. =)

I am however very adept at fixing my little errors, be they cuisine or other.  So while what you see may look good, it is most likely not how it would look were you to follow the recipe from the book. 

Bombproof Macaroni Casserole

1 small onion chopped

1 1/2 cups uncooked elbow macaroni

1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

1 cup skim milk

1 28oz can diced tomatoes

1 1/2 cups bread crums

2 tbsp butter

Preheat oven to 350. Dump all the ingredients except the breadcrumbs and butter into a casserole dish.  Cover and bake for 1 hour.   Melt butter and stir in bread crumbs. Stir for 8-10 minutes until bread crumbs are lightly toasted.  Remove cover from dish. Sprinkle bread crumbs on top of casserole....place casserole back in oven to brown bread crumbs. 

*because I used the wrong breadcrumbs, they would not toast or brown correctly. I ended up melting more cheese over the top of the casserole.  It turned out yummy despite my lack of culinary skills.