Cheese - Vegan Style

Vegan cheese.
This seems to be the one thing that is simply irreplaceable. Nothing, nothing is going to taste like dairy cheese. Nothing can replicate a block of sharp cheddar - in texture, taste, or satisfaction.
But dear, sweet vegans, they sure do try.

I do still need to write about soy and why I am trying to avoid it for the most part - basically though it is a mucus forming agent and causes slow digestion as well. All of that is to say that I have not tried any soy-based cheeses.

Though I have written about cheese before, are my findings:
Cheese no. 1: Rice Vegan by Galaxy Nutritional Foods

Basic Ingredients: rice (in many different forms)

Rice Vegan comes in slices. Easier to put on bread for sandwiches, right? I picked up the cheddar flavor - my favorite cheese. Well, the cheese still tastes like rice. Actually, it tastes like really funky rice. Unless you are looking to eat a smooth textured rice sandwich - I would not recommend.

Cheese no. 1: Vegan Rella

Basic Ingredients: water, tapioca starch, brown rice flower, canola oil

Vegan Rella comes in a block and is not as hard as cheddar but isn't mushy. Again, I chose the cheddar "style" but I am not sure if they had other options. This cheese is pungent, repulsive really. And as for taste - I would compare it to the squeeze nacho-cheese that you would get at a sporting event. That doesn't quite describe the taste though.

Before I get to cheese number 3, let me explain the excitement behind this. I read quite a bit of vegan blogs to find recipes, learn about my diet, etc. Well, everyone in the vegan blogging world has been raving about Daiya Cheese. This cheese, until 2 weeks ago could not be found at your grocery store. Daiya just went retail last week and prior to that they were only selling to commercial restaurants (pizza parlors mostly.) Any vegan that had tried the cheese at a pizza joint seemed to want to get their hands on this stuff - pronto!

Vegan cheese has a tendency to not melt or stretch well. Also, it doesn't seem to taste like real cheese - but clearly that is not the top issue. 

Well, I got on the ball and magically, just as I was finding out about Daiya it was making its retail debut. Put in the request at Greenlife and viola - 4 days later it is on the shelf!

I immediately picked up two packages of the shredded wonder cheese, cheddar & mozzarella. 

Cheese no. 3: Daiya Mozzarella

Basic Ingredients: Here is the WOW factor folks - this is the "healthiest" vegan cheese I have found yet! It has the fewest calories, folks. A blurb from their website:

Daiya contains no casein, the protein found in dairy products, no soy, and no common allergens, animal products or cholesterol.

Water, tapioca (which is from the cassava plant) and arrowroot flours, canola and safflower oil, coconut oil, pea protein, inactive yeast

I used the mozzarella version for my favorite quesadilla recipe which contains the following: fire roasted tomatoes, black beans, corn, cilantro, lime juice, and various other items. Unfortunately, I forgot to take photos. It did indeed melt and stretch. It didn't taste bad. It gave the quesadilla the good, creamy texture and flavor - which is what I suppose I was looking for. In this recipe, the cheese does not have a dominant flavor so I found it to be a great substitute. 

Cheese no. 4: Daiya Cheddar

Basic Ingredients: The same as the mozzarella.

I used the cheddar version to make a grilled cheese sandwich on sourdough bread. Because grilled cheese is one of my favorite comfort foods, I was anxious to give this one a try. 

This is the cheese - yeah, it doesn't look too appetizing up close and personal.

Used Earth Balance for the 'butter'

The cheddar melted and streched as well. It looked great! But taste is where the dissapointment set in. The cheese just doesn't taste good. I am not really expecting it to taste exactly like cheddar, and I could live with a cheese like that. But this cheese just doesn't taste good. It was creamy and satisfying texturally, but I found that I couldn't eat the center of the sandwich. I only ate the edges because in those areas the bread had enough balance with the cheese so that it wasn't too dominant of a flavor.

I have decided that vegan cheese just will not satisfy. It will substitute in a pinch (only if it is not meant to be the dominant flavor of the dish). I think that all the vegans who were excited about this cheese had certainly not had real cheese in quite some time. Folks, it has almost been 2 months since I have gone vegan and the day before I did - I had a celebration of cheese! Yes, I did and it was glorious.

Pancakes for Everyone!

Vegan pancakes really are possible. No, they do not taste like "regular" pancakes. Yes, they are still delicious.

Whipped up some of these on Sunday morning after a late night out and in preparation for my day-long hike. Although I cannot remember where I found the recipe (it was somewhere on the web) many people seemed to agree that this was a good one.
The consistency is similar to that of Bisquick pancakes (which were my favorite). If you are used to the extra-fluffy light things you might find at a pancake shop - don't look here. The non-vegans liked them (not quite as well as the usual, but neither did I). They seem to be a good substitution for the "real thing." I doubled the recipe since I was feeding a group of people and it worked well.

Pretty Darn Good Vegan Pancakes 

Ingredients:


1C flour (I suppose you can use whichever type you have at hand. I used unbleached)
2t baking powder
1/2 t salt
3 T sugar
1t vanilla
1 egg replacer (I used Ener-G)
1 C soy milk
2 T veg oil

Directions:

Mix the wet ingredients (vanilla, egg replacer, soy milk & veg oil)
Mix the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, sugar, salt)
Pour the wet into the dry and mix until smooth.

I cooked these on my "griddler." The pancakes do "bubble" when they are ready to flip. They golden nicely & taste sweetly of vanilla.
I had maple syrup from some of my baking and did not enjoy it on my pancakes. Much too sweet. I suppose that I am accustomed to the thick high fructose corn syrup version of "maple syrup". I think that these would be tastier with blueberries or bananas thrown in. Think I will give it a try next go-round.

On another note:
I made a product request at Greenlife last Tuesday and they had it in the store on Sunday! It was a fantastic surprise! I will be sure to write about my very thrilling discovery next!!

The Recipe Book Purge

When I left home for college in 2003 I took with me a book of recipe cards containing my favorite meals from my childhood. Among this collection included: baked mac & cheese, twice baked potatoes, pizza, chocolate chip cookies, lasagna, sweet & sour meatballs. All of these were my comfort foods which I gladly cooked up for roommates over the years.
As well as this cookbook, I started collecting recipes found in our local newspaper, which has a "food" section every Wednesday, and recipes found online. My collection was housed in a giant 3 ring binder with yellowed newspaper recipes pasted to card stock and slipped into page protectors. Each section contained a table of contents & comments could be added after each dish was prepared for the first time.
This week I purged my recipe books.
I have decided that returning to animal products is not something that I wish to do - and my recipe books, with their unopened pages, needed to reflect this. The only section which truly stayed in-tact was the "veggies & sides" collection. My sister has since inherited 6+ years of the best recipes I've found.
What I need now is to start my vegan cookbook collection. I have come across numerous books with rave reviews that I am dying to pick up. I need to just spend the money to do it because I have found myself eating the same things again and again. It certainly doesn't help that I am a very picky eater either. Mostly it is veggies stuffed into hummus spread tortillas for lunch + fruit on the side. Dinner is harder - as I come home hungry and haven't pre-prepared anything in ages. Soups don't appeal to me when the weather is warmer - so I am going to need to figure things out. But dinner thus far has been anything from steamed veggie pot-stickers + veggies to baked sweet potatoes or even a peanut butter slathered tortilla and various munchies.
I have been pretty good about eating my greens after I ended my smoothie cleanse and my blood is showing that my iron levels are great - something that always suffered for me as an omni.
Now I just need to make sure that I am eating balanced meals.

Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes with Fluffy Buttercream Frosting & a Brownie Bonus

More vegan baking adventures!
As I mentioned in the last post - birthdays gave me an excuse to try out some new goodies.
For the birthday girl:
Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes with Fluffy Buttercream Frosting.
Yum!
The recipe is from the cookbook: Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World
http://www.amazon.com/Vegan-Cupcakes-Take-Over-World/dp/1569242739
This book is now on my cookbook wishlist because they turned out fabulously!
The only drawback about these cupcakes is that they only made 12. I suppose that this is so you don't overindulge, because although they are vegan - they are still sweets & that's fine - just everything in moderation.
Here is where I found the recipe:
http://www.chow.com/recipes/10794
I followed the recipe using almond extract w/o alcohol (which is more syrupy) for the second extract ingredient. Again I was without dutch processed cocoa so I used the Hershey's Special Dark. The cupcakes were not quite as chocolaty as I would have liked but chocolate cupcakes are never have a very strong chocolate flavor. The consistency was wonderful - very fluffy and moist.

For the frosting I used this recipe:
http://www.chow.com/recipes/10856
Incredible!! If I were not vegan - this would still be the recipe I would choose. I have never in my life used shortening & intentionally did not read the label (even though it is vegetable based and non-hydrogenated) because I just didn't want to know. I did use the Earth Balance "buttery sticks" and they worked well.

I did have quite a bit of frosting leftover. It probably would have been enough to frost 24 cupcakes, so you could double your cake recipe. I, however, chose to dispose of the remainder by spreading it on graham crackers (you can find vegan brands).

yum yum yum.

The brownies I did not document with photos & they were less successful. For the birthday boy I made this first batch because it seemed very healthy:
http://www.recipezaar.com/recipe/Scrum-Diddly-Umptious-Vegan-Brownies-150473
They were more cake like rather than gooey. Two of my testers said that they were not sweet enough and actually used the word "bitter chocolate". Well, I didn't want anyone having a bitter birthday brownie so I tried this recipe:
http://people.tribe.net/arize/blog/3e60a521-dd86-44d5-82d2-92bc846782ca
This recipe had more of your traditional brownie taste but I found them to be too oily - the kind where you have greasy fingers after eating. They were very very moist and had a better chocolate flavor in my opinion.
I am very happy with the cupcake result but think that I am going to need to do more baking to find the perfect vegan brownie.