How many vegans on board?

ThriftyFelicity

Thought some of you might enjoy this satirical article:

'How Bad For The Environment Can Throwing Away One Plastic Bottle Be?' 30 Million People Wonder

twinkle_star_2

Hi faganswife,

What sort of thing do you want to replace cheese in? Because there are different things to substitute for different uses.

For example a white sauce can be made 'cheesey' with some nutritional yeast flakes and salt. It's easy because it's just the flavour.

But cheese on a pizza - stretchy/chewy is harder. The melty (not so much stretchy) can be replaced with either fake cheese, a sort of tofu-basil ricotta thing that goes on as a sort of sauce but sets a little bit (but is so tasty it doesn't matter what it feels like).

However if you want to replace sliced cheese in a sandwich or just a cheeseboard selection thing then it's really hard. Fake cheese just isn't very tasty. When my OH wants to replace the sliced cheese texture in a sandwich he'll use a fake sliced cheese and just use plenty of other things for flavour - hummus, roast veg, mustard, lots of salad, sliced tomatoes, etc.

If you give some examples maybe we can suggest some yummy alternatives.

faganswife

Hi Twinkle Star

Two of our favourite cheeses are stilton and M&S cheeses with the fruit ( ie blueberry ) . Dont think theres anything like that .

Ive managed to make sauce , say for lasagne , without cheese .... put a sprinkling of fake parmesan on .

Sandwiches ... havent tried false " hard" cheese as reading other peoples posts- well it doesnt sound too appealing .
Have tried fake soft cheese which is okay .

Unsure what nutritional yeast is ?????

twinkle_star_2

Nutritional yeast is pretty cool. It's sold in health food shops and that sort of place. It's like pale beige flakes (really light like confetti rather than heavy like cornflakes) and tastes a bit 'cheesey' so lots of vegans use it to get a cheesey flavour in sauces and things. It's really high in protein and B-vitamins.

Wiki article about it here

And a picture of the tub it comes in (in the UK) is here:

twinkle_star_2

For a parmesan effect (sprinkling on pasta) I tend to just use ground walnuts mixed with a little salt and nutritional yeast. The walnuts and the nooch (nutr. yeast) give you the savoury and the salt gives the tang. It's pretty nice IMO.

savvy

Ah parmesan and stilton are the ones I miss if I'm going to miss cheese.........gotta love the musty mouldy stuffs :D Not that any of it was any good for me as a vegeatrian anyway but hey!

Faganswife - another alternative are the nut based raw cheeses, FULL of cheesy flavour but a more spread like consistency. And a little tip with the fake cheeses that a lady from Bute Island Scheese told me (but I haven't tried yet) said to add one of the cream cheeses with grated Scheese Mozarella on the top and it will bubble in the oven if you're using it for pizzas, I guess that would work for chees on toast too?

pmorrisjones

:jSoya milk that doesn't curdle in coffee. The only one I've found is Lidl's own. Its kept in the chilled cabinet but actually doesn't need to be refridgerated until its open. I know that prob. means its processed in some way - but as I only drink coffee than I'm afraid thats the only one I buy.

Murrell

pmorrisjones wrote: »

:jSoya milk that doesn't curdle in coffee. The only one I've found is Lidl's own. Its kept in the chilled cabinet but actually doesn't need to be refridgerated until its open. I know that prob. means its processed in some way - but as I only drink coffee than I'm afraid thats the only one I buy.

Thanks
Sandra

twinkle_star_2

I've found that it depends on the amount of 'milk' that you have with your coffee that decides whether the milk curdles or not.

My OH, who has just a splash of milk with his coffee, has to use rice milk as soya milk alway curdles. However, I find with my coffee, latte style almost half milk (milk in first), that there is no problem with curdling.

IamJen

re: soya in coffee. I saw that they are selling a special one in H&B now, but I can't remember the brand. There were large "Doesn't Curdle!" banners on the box though.

Also, (I hate coffee), one of my friends says that the no-vitamins added kind, just plain, works better and doesn't curdle so much.