How you can help spread the vegan pizza goodness!

Greetings Humboldt Veggers!

I hope everyone is enjoying their summer and having lots of fun adventures. Our household has been consumed these past few months by the massive effort involved in moving our home, my studio, Matt's shop, and all of our animals, while simultaneously attempting to renovate/remodel the house we're moving into. Fun stuff. ;-)

Many of my fellow group leaders have also been busy with travel this summer, and it seems we let July pass without managing to plan a get-together. I'm hoping to host a vegan ice cream sundae party at our new place in Bayside later in August (if you all don't mind the disarray and construction mess!). But I thought it would be fun to try something new in place of our July event...

About a week ago, we brought our own Daiya vegan cheese to Big Pete's Pizzeria in Eureka and they made us a delicious vegan pizza. It was my first authentic pizza parlor style pie in about ten years (cheeseless pizza doesn't count), and I cannot tell you how good it tasted! That got me thinking - if we harnessed the power of this awesome group of people, might we be able to get Big Pete's (or any other local pizzerias) to make Daiya a regular offering on their menu? (thereby saving vegan consumers about $10 worth of vegan cheese from the Co-op for enough for two medium pizzas!).

Coincidentally, within days of these musings, I came across a campaign on an LA-area vegan blog to try to get more LA pizza parlors to offer vegan cheese. I borrowed the idea from them and am proposing that anyone interested in helping to expand vegan dining options in Humboldt County email me to request the form I drafted and send it in to one or more pizza parlor locally (perhaps with an emphasis on Big Pete's, since they do have two cheeseless vegan pizzas already clearly marked on their menu, and because the owner did seem receptive when I chatted him up recently). All you have to do is write the date, the name of the restaurant, and your name on the handy-dandy form and mail it in or drop it off at the pizza parlor(s) of your choice. Then we just sit back and (hopefully) wait for the delicious, gooey vegan pizza deliciousness to begin. :-)

Thanks for helping, and I hope to see many of you next month!

Tamara

Vegan Cheese Tasting

I've started a new series on my personal blog called 'Easy Vegan', where I provide recipes and other suggestions for making the transition to veganism easier. One of my readers had asked for recommendations for the best vegan cheeses, so with the help of the rest of the Humboldt Vegans team, I organized a vegan cheese tasting. Last Saturday, before a lovely dinner at Wildflower in Arcata, we all got together and sampled a variety of cheeses. (Thanks Heather, for hosting again!) Sadly, I forgot to bring the camera, so these stock product photos will have to suffice.

Round One - Mozzarella Smack-Down

~ VS. ~

To determine the best mozzarella-style cheese for melting, I made some cute little pizza bites on slices of baguette with sauce, spices, sauteed onions, and of course, cheese. We pitted Follow Your Heart Mozzarella (my personal standby for at-home pizza and sandwich making) against underdog Cheezly Mozzarella. The results of this particular showdown were rather anticlimactic - all of the tasters agreed that they tasted nearly identical, at least in their melted form.

A few quick notes on melting these non-dairy cheeses - If you didn't already read it, be sure to check out my earlier note explaining how to encourage vegan cheeses to melt in the oven. I also just found this promotional video from Follow Your Heart that shows how to use their cheeses for pizzas, mac and cheese, and quesadillas. The chef mentions that the cheese melts at 450 degrees, and I usually cook my pizzas around 425 degrees, so I'm thinking maybe if I just cooked them at a slightly higher temperature, I wouldn't have to go through the water-spritzing routine I usually use.

Back to the Follow Your Heart vs. Cheezly competition - I had some leftover cheese so I decided to follow up today by sampling them both un-melted. I tasted each alone and on crackers. My personal opinion was that I liked the taste and texture of Follow Your Heart better than Cheezly, but that could have been just because it's what I've become accustomed to.

Moving on...

Which Cheddar is Better?

~ VS. ~

We sampled two varieties of cheddar cheese - Teese Cheddar* and Sheese Medium Cheddar. We ate slices of each with crackers, apples, and alone. The general concensus among group members was that the Teese was more Velveeta-ish, and the Sheese was pretty amazing, with a more mature flavor and a nice firm texture. I would definitely buy the Sheese again - it's the first vegan cheddar cheese I've tried that is good enough to snack on straight from the container.

Again, I had some leftovers, and I offered Carlos some of the Teese today, which he thoroughly enjoyed - I think he ended up eating something like four slices. This was a major breakthrough - in the past, he has shunned all of the vegan cheeses I've offered, and I've had to compromise by buying him the soy slices that contain casein. Now that I know he likes Cheddar Teese though, I'm definitely planning to eliminate those nasty processed, casein-laden slices from his diet - hooray! So the loser of the adult taste test (Teese) had some redeeming value from a three-year-old's perspective at least.

* Yes, if you're very observant, you may have noticed that the Teese photo shows the nacho cheese flavor; it's the only decent image I could find online, but the variety we actually sampled was cheddar.

And last but not least -

Dr. Cow's - No Competition

There really is nothing to compare Dr. Cow's cheeses to - except perhaps the other flavors in their lineup. As far as I know, nothing else like it exists - Dr. Cow's crafts exquisite raw, vegan cheeses by hand using traditional techniques. I will confess up front that I never was a 'fancy cheese' connoisseur, so I honestly can't compare it to cheeses like brie and the like; however, everyone at our tasting thought that the Dr. Cow's Aged Cashew cheese was totally delicious and amazing. It was a little tangy, and a lot yummy. If you're looking for a fancy-schmancy, spreadable cheese, and you don't mind shelling out some dough, this is an excellent choice.

I think that just about wraps things up... if you have a favorite (or least favorite) vegan cheese, please leave a comment, and if you were present at the tasting and there's anything I left out, please feel free to add on!