Vegan cheese? “Sheese” review.

For the few years when I was vegetarian before I went vegan, I ate a lot of cheese.  I really liked it.  I thought it would be super hard to give up, and it was at first.  By now it just tastes vaguely rotten, but for a while it was enticing.

There actually are a few vegan cheese products that I like.  I use tofutti american cheese style slices to make grilled cheese sandwiches, and I use “follow your heart” brand mozzarella for pizzas and the like.  Neither of these comes close to the real thing–anyone who thinks they do is fooling themselves.  But they serve their purpose for a few recipes rather nicely.

So, I had some hope that I would get some joy out of the 8 oz of “Sheese” I bought for $9.25 at a vegan grocery store in town.  I got the “strong cheddar” style.  The texture looks normal enough–maybe a bit waxy looking.  It also sliced up nicely–good texture.  Unfortunately it tasted, well, appalling.  Some vegan products are pretty good but have a strange aftertaste.  This one tasted awful at the beginning, middle, and end of the bite.  The flavor was something like funky nutritional yeast with some sugar added. 

Maybe I’m exaggerating a little.  I revisited it a few times, trying to like it, but each time it sort of make me make an involuntary grimace.  As to how it matches up to the real thing?  C, who enjoys real cheese on occasion (and the afore mentioned vegan varieties I regularly cook with), had to spit it out and wash out her mouth.

The company does make many other variaties–and maybe some of them might taste good.  But for ten bucks a pop, I’m not likely to.

Anyone have any experience with the other flavors?

Vegan Croissants/Pain au Chocolat

What better to do on a lazy Sunday than spend all day on a baking project?  I was inspired by Ariel’s gift of tubes of almond paste.  I’ve made croissants before, and I like to vary them a bit by rolling some chocolate in the middle to make pain au chocolat.  Adding a little roll of almond paste makes them a delectable vegan pastry that would satisfy anyone.

There’s lots of tricks to making decent croissants.  The first step is to knead 3 sticks of earth balance with about 1/4 cup of flour.  It’s important to get this mixture smooth, because any chunks of butter will later break through the layers of dough.  Form the butter into a 6×6″ square on some foil and put it in the fridge to chill.

The next step is to create a simple yeast dough.  Use 2 cups of warmed soymilk, 2 tablespoons sugar, 2 teaspoons salt, 2 tablespoons (or packets) yeast, and 4 cups flour.  Mix well, knead (adding more flour as needed), put it back in the bowl, and refrigerate.

A few hours later after the butter has firmed up and the dough has risen in the fridge, you’re ready for the next step.  The idea here is that the dough and the butter have about the same consistency.  Knead and roll out the dough into a square about twice the size of the butter, and place the butter on top.

Fold in each corner like you’re wrapping a present.  Keeping everything well floured, turn it upside down and start rolling out into a long rectangle, about three times as long as it is wide.

If the butter starts squeezing out, everything is too warm and return it to the fridge for a while.  If the butter seems too hard and starts breaking through the dough, it’s too cold–let it warm up a bit.  Fold in thirds, bringing each end in (like a letter).  Again, keeping things well floured roll out again into a rectangle.  This time fold into fourths–fold each end to the middle then close the whole thing like a book.  Things will really be warming up by now, so wrap tightly in plastic wrap and return to the fridge for a good hour.

Unwrap and roll out again into a rectangle.  Fold in thirds.  Wrap and return in to the fridge for 3-5 hours, or longer (overnight would be fine). 

You’re now ready for the final roll.  It’s really important to keep things cold at this point.  I let a bunch of ice cubes melt on my counter for a while–if you have a marble slab by all means use it.  Unwrap, and roll out into a large square/rectangle until things are about 1/4 inch thick.  Cut into triangles with a sharp knife, place them on cookie sheets, and return to the fridge.

At this point you can simply roll them up into croissants.  I took about half and added a roll of almond paste (marzipan works fine too) and some chunks of bittersweet chocolate. 

Place them on a cookie sheet, let rise an additional hour, and bake at about 400 for 15-20 minutes.  They’re great right out of the oven, but they actually get more flaky as they cool.

They turned out pretty well this time.  I had a few issues–my triangles were a bit more like right triangles than the isosceles ones that work best. I sort of rolled each one individually to make them more in the right shape.  My first few ended up a bit ugly, but by the end they looked great.  The other problem was my oven heats much more from the bottom than the top–even on a high rack in a well-preheated oven, the bottoms got brown too fast.  I flipped them with about 5 minutes to go and they ended up looking fine.

 

I also have about a third of them in the freezer (unbaked) for a later occasion!  I’ll let you know how they turn out.

Roasted Asparagus

If you want a bit of a change from steamed, boiled, or sauteed vegetables, don’t forget your oven!  Last night I roasted up some fresh looking (and cheap) Asparagus that I bought at Uwajimaya. 

I simply tossed the trimmed spears (they were small, so I just broke off the ends–I usually peel larger spears) in some olive oil, balsalmic vinegar, salt, and paper.  Then I laid them out on a cooking sheet and put them in the oven at about 425 until they got just a little charred on the ends, about 12 minutes.

This treatment also works great for broccoli!  Or for something a little different, use lacinato kale (sometimes known as dinosaur kale).  Crispy and delicious!

Nutritional Yeast

By request… if there are any other topics you want me to cover, send me a message!

Nutritional yeast is one of those foods that you can probably find in any young, vegan household.  I don’t really know why it has become so ubiquitous–it probably has something to do with the fact that some (but not all) varieties have substantial quantities of vitamin B12, the only vital nutrient almost completely missing from a vegan diet.  Now that soymilk, fake meats, and other products are regularly fortified with B12, this is not a compelling reason to eat NuYeast.

So why eat it?  Well–because it tastes good.  It actually does have interesting nutritional properties–lots of protein and fiber–but these are things not usually missing from a vegan diet. 

There are two places it shines–as a topping on popcorn and in vegan mac and cheese.  (Sometimes I like it sprinkled on some pasta, and in my early vegan days I doused all kinds of things with it to enliven boring dishes my housemates made).

The recipe I use for “cheese” is somewhat adapted from the one in The Farm cookbook.  I start by making a roux with a few tablespoons of flour and a few tablespoons of earth balance.  After it gets nice and golden brown, I add a few cups of water and cook until it thickens.  I then add tons of salt, some fresh garlic or garlic powder, a tiny pinch of turmeric (for color), a heaping cup of NuYeast, and about half a stick of earth balance (you can make it as rich as you want using less or more).  Oh, and sometimes a dash of soy sauce.

You can also adapt this recipe (make it a little thicker and adjust the seasoning) to make a pretty good imitation of the sort of nacho cheese dip you would get at the fair or a baseball game.

If you like vegan mac and cheese and popcorn, eat NuYeast!  Otherwise, don’t try and eat it if you don’t like it.  There’s no reason that vegans need it nutritionally.

All about tofu

It’s impossible to avoid jokes about tofu when living as a vegetarian/vegan in this country.  The word is even used pejoratively, implying falseness or weakness.  Why all the hostility?  Tofu is soft, mild, and white.  What could be more unoffensive?

Like other mild foods (rice, white bread, chicken), tofu needs a little attention to be delicious.  What it needs most is salt–under-salted tofu is probably the primary reason that people don’t like it.  Tamari is a natural pair, but a little table salt and garlic or herbs is wonderful too.

The other thing it benefits from is proper treatment in the pan.  Of course, there are many ways of cooking tofu, but for standard dishes this is the way to go:

First, you have to identify the kind of tofu you’re working with.  I’m not even going to discuss the stuff that comes in the aseptic package in the grocery isle.  The refrigerated stuff comes in two primary forms–in a tub with water or in a brick wrapped in plastic.  The tub tofu can be anything from silken (not appropriate for frying) to extra firm.  The wrapped tofu is usually either firm or extra firm. 

Softer tofu benefits from a thorough draining, and even pressing between some towels (paper or cloth).  Firm tofu is ok right out of the pack.  Heat a non-stick skillet (or well-seasoned cast iron pan or wok) over medium-high heat.  Add at least a tablespoon of oil and your tofu chunks, slices, or whatever, and SALT.  Even if you’re adding soy sauce later.  The salt helps draw the moisture out of the tofu.  Get everything settled in place and turn your stove to HIGH HEAT.  The highest you’ve got.  Before long (longer if you have softer tofu, be patient), a nice brown crust will start forming.  You can fry each side, but I usually just flip it once and get nice color on 2 sides.

Turn the heat back down, throw in some tamari and chili flakes and basil (what I did last night), let things dry up, and you’re done.  Or move forward with some vegetables for a stir fry.  Or use as-is with some soba noodles.

So… salt + high heat + nonstick pan = tasty tofu!

Perfect Vegan Pancakes

I shouldn’t really say perfect, because pancakes can be so many things to so many people.  I do think these were particularly good, though.

I never use a recipe for pancakes–I just mix up whatever looks tasty that morning.  In this case it was a mashed banana, about 3/4 cup of whole spelt flour (whole wheat is pretty much the same), and 1/2 cup white flour, a pinch of salt, 1 tsp baking powder, a dab of sugar, about a tablespoon of oil, some cinnamon, a touch of cloves, and some hemp seeds (for those omega-3 fatty acids!), and enough soymilk and water to make a batter.

There’s a few tricks to making good vegan pancakes.  One is to only lighly mix your batter–chunks are ok!  Another is to use it within a few minutes of mixing.  Both of these help the baking powder make nice, light pancakes.  I use a relatively hot pan.  Another important trick is to put a nice pat of earth balance or other vegan butter in the pan before each pancake.  The last is to do a nice, clean flip, allowing the pancake to expand nicely.

I ate them with real, grade B (it has more flavor than grade A) maple syrup.

As I make other versions of my pancakes, I’ll post the recipes.  Feel free, though, to mess around–try applesauce instead of banana, oat flour instead of spelt, cardamon instead of cinnamon. 

Vegan Peanut Butter Cups

On three day weekends like these, I tend to take my cooking a little more seriously, and take the time to actually make things that sound good.  After that pasta, I needed something sweet, and a chunk of chocolate just wasn’t doing it.  I decieded to make these simple but great peanut butter cups.

The filling is easy–about equal volumes of peanut butter and powdered sugar with a pinch of salt (depending on if your peanut butter is salted or not).  Also, you can add some peanut oil (or canola oil) if your peanut butter is too dry.  The mixture should hold together in balls.

Meanwhile, melt some chocolate.  I use a glass bowl over a pot of simmering water.  It doesn’t need to be fantastic chocolate–I use the bitter sweet “pound plus” bars from Trader Joe’s.  The only trick is to “temper” your chocolate–necessary if you want nice, shiny cups with that chocolate snap.  Without getting into the science of it, you basically need to get the chocolate to crystallize in a regular pattern.  You can do this by continually stirring as it cools, or by adding some “seed” chocolate–unmelted, finely chopped chocolate that has its original crystalline structure.

Just make some little disks of the filling and dip in the chocolate.  After coating my cups, I had some melted chocolate left over, so I put in a handful of almonds, mixed them up, and scooped them out onto some plastic wrap.

The chocolate takes a while to solidify–they only really get shiny and nice a number of hours later, in my case the next morning.