Saturday, July 16, 2011

No cows were harmed in the making of this cheese toast

I made some cheeses from the Ultimate Uncheese cookbook today :) The above is the brie, which kind of actually tasted like brie - it had the moldy aftertaste somehow. I may have been imagining it.
On the left is the colby cheese - pretty tasty, will be excellent on sandwiches and toasties, or even grated and melted on pizza. Right is the brie, and the one at the bottom is a raw macadamia cheese from Addicted to vegies. It's the best one! So easy to make (all of them are easy to make) but the raw macadamia one had the most flavour. I served them as a cheese platter with carrot sticks, celery sticks and chickpea crackers. I don't think I'll ever spend heinous amounts of money on storebought vegan cheese substitutes again, all three of these tasted better than any I've had, and I know exactly what ingredients are in it. I think I've had about a years worth of vitamin B12 today alone!

The two cheeses from the Ultimate Uncheese cookbook are both set with a fair amount of agar agar powder so it could get expensive, but that depends on where you buy it. I get mine in little packets from an Asian supermarket in the city for $2 each, so it's not going to break the bank for me.

Now, I don't miss real cheese at all. I also do not think substitutes are necessary for a vegan lifestyle or diet to work, but I reckon it's fun to make things like this every once in a while :) Just cuz I can.

9 comments:

Claire said...

These look great! I keep meaning to try making vegan 'cheeses' but haven't quite got round to it yet. I refuse to eat the mass produced vegan cheese alternatives, have you seen the ingredient list!? Thanks for the kick to get trying :)

Cindy said...

Wow, your 'cheese' plate looks so cool! I must get that book one day... in the meantime I shall try the macadamia cheese. :-)

Emma said...

@Claire: Thanks :) and yes, the ingredient list may as well read: safhbsajkhfejwfbhew284789#@%%T, salt. Hahaha...

@Cindy: Thank you :) the macadamia was definately the best.

Anonymous said...

These look awesome! I've tried the Muenster Cheese and the Pepper Jack and the one with olives in it (can't remember what it's called) from the Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook! Flavour wise they weren't the best thing every but the texture was pretty rad on all counts.

Have you tried the lemon teasecake recipe from that book yet? It's AMAZING! Highly recommended :)

Anonymous said...

Allllso, the caraway cottage cheeze from Addicted to Veggies is pretty good with granny smith apple. Yeah this comment is totally random.. Haha.

Addicted to Veggies said...

Hi Emma,
Someone told me about this post, and I just wanted to swing by and say THANK YOU(!!) for the kind words about the Mac Cheese! I'm super excited that you tried it!

xo
Sarahfae

Emma said...

@Appetite affliction: thanks for your comment! I haven't tried it yet, but pretty much all the desserts in the book are on my to make list :)

@Sarafae: thanks for coming by! blogger won't let me comment on other blogger blogs lately for some reason so I couldn't tell you myself :( I think your blog is very inspiring!

Theresa said...

I love your attitude towards vegan cheese - it's totes not necessary, but hey, why not?!

Anonymous said...

I have the uncheese cook book. I love crock cheese and several other sauce type recipes - one of which makes a fantastic toasted cheese sandwich. I haven't made the block cheeses because agar agar is incredibly expensive over here (England) and to be honest I don't really miss cheese, despite loving the stuff before. No, I just love replicating the flavours because it is such fun to do. Now I know the basic building blocks of 'cheesy' taste I find it easy to adapt old favourite vegetarain recipes. I think all your cheeses look great - really neat and professional looking. The sweet miso is also pretty expensive but seems to last a while and go a long way. All the homemade cheeses taste so much better than commercial ones. It is so much better to make a cheesy tasting sauce from scratch rather than add a commercial cheese to a sauce; the flavours of bought cheese just are not good enough.
Am new to your blog and liking what I have seen. Thank you.
Sara