Less Whine, More Cheese!

Vegetarian, vegan, pescatarian, paleo -- There are a lot of diets out there, each one with its own merit! How do you choose which one is the best for you!? Personally, I'm still trying to figure that one out, but for now I'm going by trial and error. My latest trial is the paleo diet; basically, you eat lots and lots of veggies and fruits, grain-fed meats, fish, and nuts & seeds. That's about it, no legumes, no wheat, no dairy, very little sweets. I've found from past experiences that changing one's diet too drastically too quickly is a bad idea -- So I'm going step by step.

Step 1: 

Bye bye milk.. bye bye cheeses. :(

I've been on step 1 for about a week now, and I'll probably stay on step 1 for a couple more weeks. It's a big step for me! I loooove cheese and milk and all the yummy things you can make with them!

So, my main focus as of late has been to discover and create authentic tasting vegan cheeses! So far, I've only found one -- I know that seems dismal, but to be fair, I've only tried two. Fifty percent isn't too bad! My one major success was a vegan Parmesan cheese . 

This stuff is DELICIOUS. I didn't exactly follow the ratio that the recipe states, mostly because I didn't feel like looking the recipe up when I decided to make it. I just guessed and did 1/2c cashews with 1/4c nooch , and I didn't add the salt. But regardless, this stuff is incredible. The cheesy flavor is just phenomenal; I really can't say enough amazing things about it.

While on a roll with this amazing vegan Parmesan cheese, I decided to attempt a "vegan cheese sauce." I didn't simply blend the Parmesan with water, though. First, I soaked a cup of cashews all day then blended it with a few tablespoons of olive oil and about 3/4c of nooch. Behold!

Cheese sauce! This stuff is as amazing as I thought it'd be. Creamy, cheesy, yum. Now that I have this amazing cheese sauce, though, I had no idea what to do with it.. You'd think I'd have had a plan? Well, that's too logical! I was just too excited to create this! I scoured around my kitchen to see what I had, and this is what I came up with:

Are you thinking what I was thinking? Well, I don't know, but I was thinking cheesy potato soup! And that's exactly what I did. Using 4 cups of my homemade veggie broth, a whole red onion, a whole head of garlic, 3 grated carrots, a 1.5 lb bag of fingerling potatoes, and my creamy cheese sauce (I decided to omit the fresh herbs) I created the most amazingly creamy and cheesy potato soup ever!

It's amazing what you can create when you have to be creative!

How about you guys? Anyone have a phenomenal vegan cheese recipe they'd like to share? I'm up for trying anything!