displaced.vegan

When I was still eating animal I loved pizza.  It was, without having to quibble, my favorite meal.  My absolute favorite pizzas where the ones with an absurd variety of cheeses on them.  Now that I’m vegan and unwilling to give up pizza, I have found that the traditional “cheese” pizza just doesn’t cut it.  Vegan cheese aren’t readily enough and in enough flavorful varieties to make a cheese pizza tasty enough for me.  Add to that the fact that I am a picky eater and you can imagine that a “veggie” pizza suggestion is followed up with me rolling my eyes and saying, “Why bother?”  So, I usually top my pizza with vegan meat alternatives like Gimme Lean Sausage and Yves Pepperoni.  But the store I went shopping at the other day doesn’t carry my meatless pepperoni.  Despite that, I still made pizza yesterday.  I’m also out of olives.  Though that may be for the best because I like to wear them on my fingertips and do Jazz Hands in the kitchen.

toppings:

• Vegan Gourmet Mozarella cheese
• Vegan Gourmet Cheddar cheese
• Gimme Lean Ground Sausage

I had a picture.  I swear I took one.  but I’ve misplaced the camera that I took it with.  I’d take another picture with my phone but I’ve already eaten the leftovers today.  But don’t fret, more picture will be forthcoming in a few days after I have completed my newest cooking experiment: Tofu Pepperoni.

I LOVE TOFU.  Srsly.  I have a shirt that says so, so it must be true!

Tofu gets a bad wrap.  But that is mostly from people who don’t know what to do with it and tried to eat it unflavored.  But it is one of the most versatile and amazing ingredients that you can have in your fridge.  But getting the best results with it usually involves pressing it to extract it’s extra fluid, freezing, or both.

Pressing tofu is essential when trying to imbue it with outside flavors, like with a marinade.  Think of unpressed tofu as a saturated sponge.  If you want to get new fluid into the sponge the old fluid needs to be removed.

Freezing tofu is usually done after a cursory pressing, though that’s not entirely necessary.  Tofu that has been frozen changes in texture, becoming chewier and more resilient.

This recipe for Tofu Pepperoni looks promising.  Unfortunately, my spice rack is missing a few items so I need to go shopping again.  So expect a follow up blog post.  And next time, it will have pictures.

At this time I would like to talk about a giveaway my fellow blogger & twitterer the Voracious Vegan is doing.  She is giving away a TofuXpress tofu press.  This handy dandy little device would make my life a whole lot easier.  And if you are as serious about tofu as I am then you should enter too.  So.. Go read this blog.  Then leave a comment, post to twitter about it, write a blog about it, or all three.

see you next time… hopefully with pictures.

VeganMoFo’s ending was perfectly timed. Because once Peter got here for his visit I did not feel like writing a bunch of blogs. But that doesn’t mean I quit cooking vegan stuff. In fact, I have been in cooking over drive. I’ve managed to bang out a couple veg blogs covering a few meals, but pretty much every day I have been cooking. I’ve made bread, a fresh batch of seitan, lots of breakfast foods (Breakfast Burritos, Tofu Scrambles, biscuits and gravy, pancakes, etc), brownies, Pizza, and I’m sure a lot more than I can recall off hand. And in the process of cooking all vegan for my houseguest, I may have planted the Veganism seed in Peter. He has loved everything that I have cooked.

I don’t have any of the pictures from most of these meals readily available, so I’ll just do a picture blog later. But don’t expect a lot. I had a difficult time remembering to take pictures and by the time I did, most of the food was already crammed in my mouth.

I used all of my Daiya cheddar during Peter’s visit. And I have to say that it is fabulous. And if I had a retailer nearby I would be buying Daiya’s Cheddar exclusively. I used Follow Your Heart Cheddar in a homemade cheez-it’s recipe and they turned out okay. Verdict is still out on wheter I will be buying it again. I think I’m just gonna have to try it in more things. But I think the key to using Follow Your Heart Vegan Cheeses is to press out the excess moisture before use because it is a very wet cheese. Also, their cheddar flavor is not something I would just munch on. I didn’t use my Italian Blend Daiya on the pizza I made, although I imagine it would be perfect. Instead I used the Mozzarella flavored Follow Your Heart cheese. I could probably much on the Moz. The taste wasn’t bad alone and it was GREAT on my pizza. Although I liked the other toppings on my pizza, I could happily chow down on an all vegan cheese pizza. So even if the Daiya ends up being better, my cheese of choice will still be Follow Your Heart. It’s local (Food-For-Less in Medford, OR) and a great product.

The moistness of the Mozzarella cheese was not a problem, since it was gonna be melted, and also since fresh mozzarella cheese is a moist cheese anyway. If your only experience eating real mozzarella cheese was in the form of those dry shreds, then you missed out. I effin’ love Follow Your Heart’s Moz Cheese. And I am so incredibly grateful that I have a vegan cheese for pizza that I can find locally.

I have so much more to write about. I got a fabulous soy milk maker from Peter for my birthday that I am über stoked to fire up. I’ve lost 10 lbs since going vegan (not exercising a lick). But I also have a main blog that I need to write a novel in. So this is where this post ends.

So there has been no food experimentation or anything exciting going on. My diet has consisted of mostly enriched wheat farina. This is a precautionary measure I learned as a kid. Malt O Meal is friction free if you happen to become nauseated. So when I am sick and uncertain of whether or not my food is going to stay down, I always stick to this hot cereal.

I did have one omni food craving the other day, before I lost my sense of smell and taste.? I was in our pantry and saw a box of Cheez-Its.? And for the first time I became momentarily lost the taste-sense memory? But I did not once thing “what would it hurt?”? Instead, I began wondering what I might do to satiate this craving.? There are vegan cheese crackers I could order.? And another MOFOer wrote about making some with Daiya, which I have purchased but not yet used.? Eventually I decided that at another time I would make my own cheesey crackers. And then I got overwhelmed with the ick.

I probably won’t be posting much for the duration of my illness.? There is no variation in my diet and nothing picture or story-worthy goiong on.

Back when I first became a vegetarian and flirted with becoming a vegan I tried a few cheese alternatives.? most of them weren’t even vegan, having dairy derived ingredients to aid in melting.? And for the most part, all of them were a disappointment.? I didn’t need them to taste exactly like Cheese.? But I did need them to have at least a generic cheese taste.

I’ve read a few reviews here and there for various vegan cheeses.? I even saw a blog that had a side by side comparison of several top brands which all failed in some way.? However, now there is Daiya.

Daiya is a vegan cheese that melts and from what I’ve heard, tastes pretty good.? Problem is that Daiya still hasn’t implimented a retail strategy yet and only sells in bulk to the food industry.? A handful of mail order companies? have managed to get Daiya in stock, which they then source out to commercial kitchens to shred & package it in smaller portions.? Two retailers, Pangea & Cosmo’s Vegan Shoppe are both on the east coast.? Portland Oregon’s Food Fight only carries Daiya in stores and I live in Southern Oregon.

In the end, I ordered online from VeganEssentials who, I believe, is based out of Wisconsin.? The deciding factor was financial.? I ordered 2 lbs of Daiya, had to pay for a cooler and ice pack and 2nd day shipping. This was the same across all three websites I found Daiya available from.? However, I found a one-time use coupon for Vegan Essentials that reduced shipping by $7.? VeganEssential’s 2-day shipping was marginally less than? the others and in the end I paid $35 for 2 lbs of Vegan cheese.

Let that sink in.

I paid $35 for 2 lbs of vegan cheese.

I will not be repeating this unless Daiya fucking BLOWS MY MIND.? At this price, I can’t afford it.? This makes me sad because I love cheesey food so incredibly much.? So I guess I’ll have to be more careful and plan out exactly how I am going to be spending this dietary currency.

Makers of Daiya cheese take note.? There are people out there who willingly paid extra for coolers and 2-day shipping, essentially paying for your product TWICE over.? Get off your asses and offer it to the public already so I can request my local grocer carry it.