After months of anxious waiting, our long national vegan cheese nightmare has ended. The much-anticipated retail version of dairy-free Daiya cheese showed up at our local Whole Foods (a trifle late, WF Albuquerque, but all is forgiven!) this morning, and we snatched some up!

For those not familiar with Daiya, it’s a non-dairy, 100% vegan cheese (that is also free of gluten and soy) that hit the vegan food scene last year. People who have tried the stuff have raved about its authentically cheese-like texture and flavor. Unfortunately, up to now it’s only been sold to the food service and food manufacturing markets, so unless you’ve been lucky enough to have a local source for it, it’s only been available in bulk quantities at steep prices. We’ve been dying to try it, but didn’t want to shell out a lot of cash on a product we have reason to be wary of.

The reason we’re so excited about Daiya is that non-dairy cheeses generally range from “inedible plastic” to “inedible Play-Doh” in taste and texture, and the ones that taste okay don’t melt well, and vice-versa. Most of the animal-based foods we used to eat have decent vegan substitutes, but not cheese. And we love cheese! When we heard about this new vegan cheese that actually had a dairy cheese taste and texture, we were like, “give.” So we’re thrilled that Daiya is finally available in a retail package that we can try. And so we have!

The first thing I noticed on opening the packages (for now, it’s available in two varieties, cheddar and mozzarella) is a strongly cheesy aroma. I doubt that anyone but a super-smelling cheese expert could tell by smell alone that this wasn’t dairy-based cheese. Since much of what we perceive as taste is actually smell, this is a good start.

The texture is also pretty cheese-like (it comes in shredded form, but I’m hoping for a block or sliced version), although the shreds are pretty small, more like confetti than what I’m used to seeing. I think it feels a little gummier than dairy cheese, but it’s been a while since I’ve touched shredded dairy cheese, so I dunno.

The taste of uncooked Daiya is surprisingly cheesy — I think this has to do with the fact that it’s not a soy- or rice-based cheese, so it doesn’t have the characteristic flavors of those ingredients — but not totally convincing. Hannahbee calls it a “processed cheese vibe,” which I think is accurate. If you’ve had Velveeta or Kraft American slices, it’s similar to that flavor.

Where Daiya clearly earns its reputation is when melted. I made grilled cheese sandwiches on white bread with Earth Balance, and…wow. Yeah. it’s cheese. Gooey, salty, cheesy cheese.

I’m not sure what kind of weird science was employed in creating this stuff, but I’m grateful for it. I’m sure it’s highly processed, and I don’t for one second mistake Daiya for whole, healthy food, but a glance at the ingredients doesn’t show anything alarming:

(Daiya Mozzarella) Filtered water, tapioca and/or arrowroot flours, non-GMO expeller pressed canola and/or non-GMO expeller pressed safflower oil, coconut oil, pea protein, salt, vegan natural flavors, inactive yeast, vegetable glycerin, sunflower lecithin, calcium citrate, xantham gum, citric acid, vegan bacterial cultures.

There is saturated fat (2g per 1/4 cup serving) in Daiya, from the coconut oil (I won’t get into a discussion of plant-versus-animal-based saturated fats, but those avoiding saturated fats should take note), and quite a lot of sodium (250-280mg per 1/4 cup serving). Again, Daiya should not be confused with health food, but hey, even vegans should get to splurge on junk food once in a while, right?

(If you compare Daiya to animal milk-based cheese, it’s fairly comparable. Kraft mozzarella, for instance, has 3.5g saturated fat and 200mg sodium per 1/4 cup serving.)

What was really satisfying about our Daiya experience was the feeling of normalcy that came from eating something familiar and satisfying like a grilled cheese sandwich. Now, I don’t want to build our diet around simply veg-ifying our pre-vegan dishes, because I find that too limiting when there’s this whole world of delicious plant-based foods out there. But sometimes it’s nice to have comfort foods. And for Hannah and me, a lot of our comfort foods are cheese-based.

I don’t foresee eating Daiya more than a couple times a month, but it does open up a lot of possibilities. For instance: nachos. Tonight. Aw yeah.

My mom loves Gordon Ramsay. It all started when we watched some episodes of his US version of Kitchen Nightmares at her house. They were free on On Demand, and we didn’t have anything else to watch. She liked it a lot, so we made a DVD with more episodes. Then we gave her Hell’s Kitchen. And she LOVES it. She mentions it all the time, and then we kind of get into it, because I’m conflicted about him.

On the one hand, I liked Kitchen Nightmares in the UK quite a bit. And I can admit that I liked the season of Hell’s Kitchen we watched when we lived in Vegas (but not enough to watch any more….the contestants are just too insipid). I agree with my mom that he actually comes off as pretty big-hearted. Yes, he can be abrasive, but I think he truly wants to help those restaurateurs and chefs in those failing restaurants, not for his own glory, but because he values the trade and craft.

On the other hand, upon becoming a vegan, I’ve really noticed the deriding and dismissive attitude toward vegetarians and vegans that prevails in the “food world.” I guess I would call myself a foodie, I certainly knew how to pronounce just about all the foods on this list, and I’ve eaten plenty of decadent stuff (nearly all made from body parts and/or excretions/secretions of animals). So I’ve been exposed, both before becoming vegan and after, to the extreme condescension (and often overt hostility) with which people who choose not to eat animals are treated. And somewhere along the way, I got that impression of Gordon Ramsay, for good reason.

However, he just recently went on Ellen (an amazing representative for at least a few despised groups), and he seemed positively giddy in his nervousness…so much so that he cut himself. (He kept repeating “I haven’t cut myself this bad in ten years!”) And he prepared an entirely vegan stirfry, with no snark or crappy comments. In addition, he’s recently indicated (after learning about industrial agriculture involving pigs) that he can see why people could go vegetarian or vegan “instantly.”

Anyway, after looking into it further, I’m definitely softening my stance on Gordon Ramsay. If even he can be convinced to at least acknowledge that people have a compelling reason to make this change, and he can honor it as a valid way of living that merits his respect (which I think he did by going on US television and enthusiastically cooking a vegan meal), then there’s hope. There is hope.

You want quick and easy? We got quick and easy! Tonight Mrs. Pants and I had a little something I like to call Harvest Casserole. It’s what I’m gonna call a “second-run” entree, in that the central ingredient is something left over from a previous meal.

In this case, the leftover in question is a delicious vegan Alfredo sauce, courtesy of Vegan Yum Yum. It’s a regular favorite at Casa McCracky, and very easy to make. We made this sauce the night before last, for a simple pasta dish, and doubled the recipe since we knew we’d be making this casserole later. (Yay meal planning!) This sauce makes a great creamy base for just about anything you want a creamy sauce for.

For the pasta, we use Bionaturæ organic semolina pasta. Semolina pasta isn’t as healthy as whole grain wheat pasta, but it is less processed (and therefore retains more nutrients) than refined white flour pasta, and we prefer the taste and texture of it over the whole grain pastas we’ve tried, so we look for 100% semolina pasta whenever possible.

Ingredients

• Hurry Up Alfredo Sauce


• Bionaturæ penne pasta (about ½ bag)


• Trader Joe’s Harvest Hodgepodge frozen vegetables (1 bag)


• Trader Joe’s Petite Peas (frozen, about 1½ cup or ½ bag)


• Trader Joe’s Gourmet Fried Onion Pieces (French’s is more common and is probably OK, but we know for sure that these are vegan, so we stick with TJ’s)


• Soy milk (or any unflavored non-dairy milk — we used soy because that’s what we had left over from making the Alfredo sauce) (about ½ cup)


• Salt and pepper to taste

Prepare the pasta, taking it off the heat a bit sooner than you normally would, so that it’s a little firmer than al dente (it will soak up some water and flavor from the sauce while baking). Meanwhile, if you don’t already have the Alfredo sauce on hand, this is a good time to prepare it.

Also get your pan ready. You’ll want a rectangular baking dish, greased with Earth Balance margarine or olive oil. Preheat your oven to 350°.

When the sauce is ready, combine it in a LARGE bowl (you’ll need plenty of room for all the ingredients) with the bag of Harvest Hodgepodge and the peas (these veggies don’t have to be defrosted). When the pasta is ready, you’ll want to mix that in and stir well.

The sauce will probably be a bit thick, so you can thin it out with soy milk until it’s a good consistency (you don’t want it to be soupy, but you want it a bit thinner than Alfredo sauce because some of the liquid will evaporate during baking).

Pour the mixture into the baking dish and cover with foil. Bake at 350° for 20-30 minutes. Remove the foil and sprinkle fried onion pieces evenly over the top of the casserole.

Return the dish to the oven and continue baking, uncovered, for another 15-20 minutes or until the topping is nicely browned. Add salt and pepper to taste and serve!

If you like casseroles, this dish is a real winner. It has all the comforting, creamy richness you want from a creamy casserole. I think the crispy fried onions are the crowning touch.

If you wanted some kind of meat-like component, I suppose you could add some chunks of chicken-style seitan or marinated tempeh — I might try that next time — but this dish seriously needs nothing else to be incredibly satisfying.

No photo this time. I really need to remind myself to take pictures of this stuff. Ah well. I might edit one in later, next time I make this dish!

As part of what seems to be a budding series on Inappropriate Breakfasts, I thought I’d try something a little different with my usual oatmeal this morning. Now, I am very, very conventional when it comes to certain foods. For instance, a bowl of grits, for me, is grits, butter (or nowadays, “butter”), salt, and black pepper. That’s it! Cheese grits? WRONG. Sweetened grits? DOUBLY WRONG. Things that are normally sweet, should stay sweet. That which is savory, remains savory. Some people grew up putting salt on their watermelon. Not me, so I never will.

On the other hand, never say never. Oatmeal, for me, is something to be eaten sweet: brown sugar and cinnamon, and some fruit. Walnuts are about as far towards savory as I’ll go. But when I read about Mark Bittman recommending savory oatmeal, I was intrigued. I tried it a while back, and liked it quite a bit. I had it again this morning, adjusting some things to suit my tastes.

As usual, my “recipes” are pretty much just “a handful of this, a shake of that.” But I’ll share what I did.

Ingredients:

• Oatmeal, Steel-Cut (1 cup) cooked in a rice cooker on “porridge” setting with water (3½ cups) and salt (½ teaspoon)


• Scallions (Green Onions) (¼ cup or a small handful)


• Eden Organic Seaweed Gomasio (a couple of shakes, to taste) Gomasio is a Japanese condiment made from sesame seeds ground with salt. The seaweed gomasio I use contains ground dried sea vegetables for extra flavor and nutrional goodness! However, regular sesame seeds are just fine.


• Nama Shoyu (1 tablespoon) Nama shoyu is raw, unpasteurized soy sauce; regular soy sauce works, too.


• Misc. seasonings: I added a shake of granulated garlic (garlic powder if you don’t have that) and a bunch of black pepper (I am a fiend for black pepper).
  
  I also added sea salt, which was a mistake because the nama shoyu and gomasio made the dish plenty salty. I wouldn’t do it again, but if you’re using regular sesame seeds, you might want to taste the dish and add salt at the end if needed.

To assemble this dish, you take a bowl of cooked oatmeal and stir in all the ingredients except for a bit of the scallion to sprinkle on top as a garnish. If you like, you can also sprinkle a little olive oil on top for a bit of richness. Make sure everything’s well-combined.

I find the flavor of savory oatmeal a little unusual, since I’m so used to the flavor of my usual sweetened oatmeal, but it helps to think of it as akin to a rice porridge, which (at least in Asian cooking) is generally a savory dish. But it’s really good. If you have any leftovers, you can refrigerate them and make fried cakes out of them later.

Like I said, I’m not normally the most adventurous eater. One terrific side effect of going vegan has been to open my eyes (and taste buds) to new kinds of flavor combinations that never would have occurred to me before. My diet is actually a lot more varied and interesting than it was when I was still eating animals. So much for the idea of a vegan diet being “limiting.”

Sorry for the horrible photo, but I had to take these with my iPhone.

We had some leftover quinoa from last night’s dinner, so I thought a breakfast quinoa would be an interesting change of pace from our usual morning oatmeal. Here’s what I did:

I heated up about 1½ cups almond milk (sweetened/vanilla) in a sauce pan until it just began to boil. Then I added enough leftover quinoa to make kind of a porridge-y, grits-like consistency, then lowered the heat, added about 2 tablespoons brown sugar and a couple of good dashes of cinnamon, and stirred constantly until it was completely heated through.

Meanwhile, I had some frozen fruit (blueberries and strawberries) that I had thawed overnight, and some walnuts. I spooned some fruit/nuts into each bowl (Hannah wanted strawberries only, and I wanted strawberries, blueberries, and walnuts, because I like to live large).

When the quinoa was heated through, I spooned it into the bowls and then stirred vigorously to mix everything up. That’s it! It took about five minutes.

I thought it was pretty good — fluffy and soft, but the quinoa doesn’t disintegrate into mush, so you can still taste the individual grains. It’s similar to the (steel-cut) oatmeal we know and love, but has a lighter consistency and that distinctive, slightly grassy flavor of quinoa.

Hannah thought it was good, but still prefers oatmeal. I agree, but I think it’s a nice change of pace, and a pretty tasty way to use up leftover quinoa.

We belong to a local CSA, so we get a box of produce every week. We used to pick it up on Mondays when we did errands, but doing errands on Monday was making me go crazy because it started the week at a too-frantic pace. So, we changed our pickup day to Wednesday, now errands are Wednesday (which includes grocery shopping), so meal planning is Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. (To be honest, it’s usually right before we need to get going!)

See what we do? We plan our meals for the week after we know what’s coming in the produce box (the list posted online at the beginning of the week), but before we do our grocery shopping. It was like a revelation, this meal planning concept. I had no idea how much stress it would relieve! Before we start our lists, we do a quick pantry/fridge inventory to see what we can make from what we have, and then we buy staples and any recipe necessities.

Here’s a tiny sample of this week’s planning:

We have a tube of pre-made organic polenta. I know polenta is very simple to make (it’s cornmeal and water, maybe a little salt), and one day I will definitely make a batch, but until then, the little vacuum packed tubes are a good size for the two of us. I really love polenta, and could probably eat one of those tubes myself, but I won’t. This time. Anyway, I remembered last night that we have this polenta, and I want to have it, so I carefully and scientifically evaluated what would be the most nutritionally optimizing foods to eat with it. Just kidding, I just picked something at random that I knew we had in the fridge: a pound of mixed greens already cleaned and prepared!! So, here’s the meal that will make: braised greens with pine nuts and sliced olives over pan-toasted polenta slabs. Slabs doesn’t sound all that appetizing, now you know why I’m not a cookbook author.

How will this delectable meal be prepared?

Have all this stuff ready before you start (note: all measurements are approximate — Here’s the truth: use what you like. Pants loves onions, so ours would have more onion. Some might want it more salty or less salty, so adjust the soy sauce. Or eliminate it and use salt if you don’t like that soy sauce flavor! I would probably use more garlic because I like it a lot. Want walnuts and no olives? Great! Want green olives and ripe olives? Great! Try stuff, see what you like! You could make it more Italian by adding chopped tomatoes. You could make it Southern by subtracting the nuts and olives, upping the vinegar and adding sugar or maple syrup, maybe a little liquid smoke and tabasco. Don’t be scared! Go crazy!):

1/2c - 1c chopped white/yellow onion
1-2 garlic cloves, minced
for braising the greens:
     1c water or broth to which you’ve added:
          2t soy sauce
          2t acid (lemon juice or vinegar)
3/4c pine nuts (raw or toasted, your preference)
3/4c chopped kalamata olives (pre-pitted)
add’l small amount of liquid or fat to brown onions/garlic

In a tall pot (like a stock pot) brown some garlic and onions. You can brown them in oil/earth balance/water/broth. Whatever you like. Since we did some McDougalling (extremely low fat vegan), we unlearned some habits like starting every dish with oil. In my opinion, some foods really need to be browned in fat (potatoes & polenta, to name two) but onions and garlic do not. You’d be surprised at what little flavor that fat at the beginning is actually adding! I literally can’t tell the difference in a dish where the aromatics (onion, garlic, celery, carrot, etc) have been started in water or broth vs oil. And since in this dish I know there’s some good veg fat in the nuts and in the olives, I won’t cook with oil except to grill up the polenta.

So, now your onions and garlic are soft and translucent. (PROTIP: start with your onions, give them about a half-minute headstart on your garlic…that helps the garlic not scorch. If things are getting scorchy, add a little more liquid or fat.)

Next, stuff all your cleaned/trimmed/chopped greens in the pot. The heat should be low to medium-low. A pound of greens may look like a lot, but it will cook way down, so far down that you’ll probably wish you had more greens! Pour over the liquid you prepared and give everything a stir. Cover.

Cook on low to med-low heat, stirring occasionally. Keep an eye on them to make sure the liquid hasn’t cooked out since the greens can scorch if that happens. If you’re worried, add more. Test and taste the greens for tenderness and flavor. When you like the flavor and texture, stir in the pine nuts and olives, turn off the heat, and cover to keep warm.

After stirring in the additions to the greens, I’ll pull out that tube o’ polenta and cut it open. It’s packed in water, so if you try one, cut it over the sink. I’m going to slice it lengthwise into planks about 1/2 inch thick. Maybe we’ll get 6 planks or so. I’ll brown them in olive oil until they crisp on one side (maybe 2-3 minutes?) turn and brown the other side. I’m not really trying to fry them, just get some nice browning on the surface. The inside will be creamy and soft. Plate the polenta in a shallow bowl, spoon the greens (with some of the liquid, if you like) over top. Salt & pepper to taste.

Regarding cooking greens like kale, collard, mustard, chard, turnip greens, beet greens: Here is my confession, my shame. There have been cooking greens available nearly every week in our CSA since we moved here. For most of that time (until last fall, I would say) we subbed them out for something else. We were scared of greens and didn’t know what to do with them and I wasn’t sure I even liked them. I honestly don’t know what happened, we just ate them a few times, tried some recipes (some real recipes) with them and KA-BLAOWAM!! Now I LOOOOVE greens. I actually crave them. I want to eat them twice/thrice weekly. We have them in stir-frys. We have them with beans. We have them with grains. We have them braised like this. I would eat this on toast or rice or even savory oatmeal. The other day I made kale chips (massaged ripped up kale with a little oil and too much salt and baked on low heat until they were crispy). I got the salt amount all wrong, so each one was like a crazy crispy Green Salt Bomb. I still ate them, they were awesome.

So, that’s a small slice of our planning and an example of what we eat. That dish is planned for Sunday. We planned out one week’s worth of dishes, including today. One day (Thursday) is a lunch, since we go to my mom’s for dinner every Thursday. For lunch that day we’re having BLTs on lavash bread (a flatbread that’s thin like a flour tortilla, but more hearty, like a pita). Uh….bacon? Yes….tempeh bacon! Yum!!