I'm inspired! As a vegan, I believe it's of paramount importance to make plant-based food appealing and palatable to the omnivorous masses. The growing number of vegetarian convenience foods provides a flavorful yet lighter taste that most people come to prefer. When serving these dishes, be sure to remind friends that they can improve their overall health and lose weight by regularly incorporating whole grains, vegetables, and other nutritious plant foods into their diet.  

I don't have the recipe on me, but there is a recipe for a tofu "ricotta" (it uses nutritional yeast) in the Vegan with a Vengeance cookbook by Isa Chandra Moskowitz (a must-have, even for an omni kitchen!). The ricotta isn't enough like regular ricotta to gross out hardcore vegans - in fact, it is way better. It browns beautifully on pizza, so I'm guessing it would be perfect for any kind of pasta dish. Get this cookbook!!! :)

Marinara sauce from a jar? Fake sausage from soy and textured wheat gluten? Margarine? I'm sorry, what exactly is  assembling a "meal" out of processed foodlike items doing on Grist? Just because you didn't use meat doesn't make this a success story. I'm not vegan, but if I were I'd be insulted by this meal -- there are plenty of actual foods one can eat instead of meat and cheese substitutes. Like, say, vegetables.

Yucko.

I know what you mean about prepackaged foods. I normally steer clear of dishes that I can't make with ingredients in their least processed state. However, lots of vegans write in requesting vegan recipes and many of the vegans I spend time with (and eat with regularly) all make use of soy  or gluten-based meat substitutes (sausages, "cold cuts", textured protein, etc.) on a regular basis so I thought I'd try to make a recipe that reflects the way that most of the vegans that I know actually cook rather than always following my own instincts and preferences. There are some vegan ingredients I won't use: fake eggs seem ridiculous to me. I get eggs at a community organic farm where the chickens can go outdoors and scratch, and they are fed an excellent diet. Why wouldn't I want to support that? Also, why would I want to put the ingredients that are in fake eggs into my body? The brands I've seen are made largely out of starch. I want protein when I eat an egg, not starch! But, for people who don't want to eat eggs, fake eggs are useful. (I also have a friend with a severe allergy to eggs and she uses them too.)

As far as margarine goes, I personally prefer butter made from organic milk. The corn-based margarine that I was raised on (which I always told my parents "doesn't taste like it's a food") was awful and bad for you as well. Some of the new soy margarine products are better.

BTW, the person who put in the links in the article meant to write Earth Balance, not Smart Balance. (The link does go to Earth Balance.) I will ask the Grist staff to correct that.

So, to address your concern, I don't normally use these ingredients in my cooking, but I thought it would be good to go outside of my comfort zone a bit and explore some vegan products. Interestingly, none of the vegans I know have told me that they find this recipe "insulting." They were glad that I published a recipe they want to try. The people who ate the dish all enjoyed it... even the dedicated carnivores! I don't think that they'll be filling a piñata with soy-based sausages any time soon, but you never know.

That said, I think there's nothing wrong with using a jar of organic sauce if one is in a hurry, and I use canned beans when I don't have the time to soak them overnight. (This is one of the major ways I plan to make use of a time-travel machine when they invent one: to be able to go back to the previous day and start soaking beans...) I have made ravioli from scratch on occasion, but it's not something that I have the chance to do as often as I would like. Perhaps you are fortunate enough to have more free time than I do. Are there some sauce recipes you'd like to share? Have you put up jars of sauce when you've had a good harvest of tomatoes? Please share your experiences with us.

Also, this recipe is for just one course of a meal, not the entire meal, so there is certainly room for more vegetables. Serve your favorite vegetables as a side dish. I always like to have a salad as well. Many readers tell me that they really like the made-from-scratch Maple-Basil salad dressing in the article I wrote called "Looking for a Miracle." One reader told me that she's never bought another bottle of salad dressing since then! I hope that you will enjoy it too. Bon appetit!

...and great suggestions. Thank you!

I've been a vegan for 8 years now and have to say that nothing tofurky makes actually tastes good.  Vegan feta...tried it.  It tastes like sheet.  Really...better to go with basic, whole ingredients, not just have a "vegan" version of the Standard American Diet.  Plus, all processed soy foods require huge quantities of Beano so you don't stink out your co-workers.  I think the body resists digesting them because they're about as natural as cardboards.

Plus...watching football is a total waste of time.  I even thought that when I worked security at the Superdome.  Had I not needed the money, I would never have wasted my time watching those nimrods ram into each other.  Honestly, kids kicking a ball around in the streets of Rio is eco-friendly.  There is absolutely no way to twist something like American-style mega sports worship and consumption into anything resembling eco-friendliness.  Plus...I'm pissed that my tax dollars build those stupid coliseums.  

I have to agree with Ethicurean on this one.  Roz, I normally enjoy reading your column and looking at the recipes, even if as a vegan I can rarely give them a try myself (although I have made a couple of things in the past, your italian bean dip was fab!).

But my anticipation of a vegan snack that I could try dissolved into disappointment.  I am not a good cook, but even I can figure out how to boil pasta and tip a jar of sauce on it for myself.  This is not cooking it is 'warming up' and lazy to boot.

Please, a vegan recipe that uses ingredients and involves a bit of cooking would be very much appreciated.

if you are looking for some that you can try:

1.) Chocolate Cherry Cake
2.) Peanut Sauce
3.) Brokeass 3 Bean Salad
4.) Sweet & Sour Soup
5.) Sweet Potato Soup (if you make it with vegetable broth)
6.) Tomato-Orange Soup with Basil and Cinnamon (if you don't add a dollop of yogurt or sour cream)
7.) Panzanella with lemon-chive vinaigrette
8.) Night of 1,000 Nightshades (a stew)
9.) Kale with Balsamic Vinegar, Garlic, and Raisins
10.) Thai Flavors Salad
11.) Maple-Basil Dressing
12.) Red Pepper Miso Soup
13.) Chickpea Curry with Tomato and Mango
14.) Zucchini Salad with Raisins and Honey-Curry Dressing

also, Marge Piercy's book includes a recipe that we reprinted for 15.) Sweet Potato Kugel

As you may have read in my response to Ethicurean, and as you can see from my recipes, I usually use unprocessed ingredients, but I wanted to try using some of the products that I normally avoid. I thought that it would be good for me to do something outside my normal comfort zone and to see what many vegans and vegetarians routinely use in their cooking. I probably won't use the "sausage" again (I'd rather just make something with tofu and season it myself) but I liked the tofu ravioli and will use it in the future. I do sometimes use a jar of organic tomato sauce and canned beans in my cooking and I feel okay about that. Like a lot of people, I have an insanely busy schedule and I try to cook the healthiest meals that I can in the time that I have. Also, I often decide what to cook depending on what's in the market that day, which means that it's too late to soak beans. Fortunately, organic canned beans are very affordable and I make use of them a lot.