Sunday, March 10, 2013

Cheese, please.

Living in Montreal has opened my eyes to the wonders of the cheese world. So many kinds!!! .... And I can't have any of them. Of all the things that I have had to give up, cheese was probably the hardest. Lasagna, pizza, grilled sandwiches... Finding a substitute for the bread and noodles was easy, but you just can't have those dishes without the cheese! I've also learned, the hard way, that you absolutely have to read the label on everything! I remember one of the first times I bought a dairy free cheese, I was so excited that I could find it at my grocery store! It came in slices (and I'm really sorry but I can't remember the brand!) and I got it home and made a grilled cheese sandwich with it. It didn't take long for me to start to feel off. Only then did I think to read the ingredients list, where hidden in amongst all the rest was the dreaded word "Casein". After a bit of research it was then that I learned that casein is sometimes used as a binding agent in vegetarian cheeses. Ugh. After that I moved on to vegan cheeses, but never really found anything that I liked; either I didn't enjoy the flavour or the texture of it was just too off for me to be able to enjoy.



About a year ago, however, a good friend of mine told me about this "stuff" she'd heard of out of Vancouver, called Daiya (she's always on the lookout for things I might be able to use; I have great friends!). She thought it could be something that I might be interested in, so we checked and found a couple of places where I could get it here in Montreal. Ah, the thrill of the hunt! I tracked some down at the Jean Talon Market and picked up a couple of bags of presredded Mozzarella and a Cheddar. *insert heavenly choirs singing, here* Wow!! I was finally able to make lasagna and pizza again! At the time, you had three choices, the mozza, the cheddar and a pepperjack. Never was a fan of the cheddar, but then I never really liked cheddar anyways. The pepperack is a nice addition to egg dishes and I actually prefer the mozzarella flavour of the daiya to what I remember of the original. It has a wonderful, rich flavour that works super well with my lasagna which was always vegetarian and now just happens to be vegan too. Recently, they have come out with a line of "block" cheeses which I now absolutely love for grilled sandwiches because they melt beautifully (better even than the shredded varieties to be honest). My favourite is probaly the jalapeno havarti. 'Nuff said!


Lobster Mac and Daiya Cheese



One day a couple of months ago I ran to the shop closest to our apartment to grab some cheese and to my horror, they were out. Now, I was actually in the middle of a recipe when I realized I needed some, oops, so didn't have a choice but to try something else. Which is when we discovered Earth Island Vegan Mozzarella. *Note: If you follow the link, you will see it named as Follow Your Heart, and it is the same thing, but I don't find it here under that name, though I certainly haven't looked for it everywhere, either. Possibly the company has made some changes recently? The web site doesn't say and I was frankly a bit confused by it till I started paying attention.


This has become our go-to cheese for melting on pizza as my husband prefers the texture and how it melts (evenly) when the look is important (think pizza and nachos!). Flavour wise it isn't as rich as the Daiya, but this makes the best broccoli cheese soup ever. It grates up so easily and you will actually get a bit of the pull like a dairy mozza. Fun! The one thing to keep in mind is that it suggests that you use it within 3-5 days of opening, and boy do they mean it! It will go off if left unused quite quickly, but I just take that to mean "use all of it"!

Twice baked Sweet Potato and Earth Island Mozzarella cheese
 

I am quite sure that there are more options out on the market that I am not aware of, and I probably spent a good 20 minutes perusing both of the company web sites and getting very excited about some of their products, both those I haven't seen before and upcoming ones. (Hint: gluten and dairy free frozen pizza!!!) Still, while I always love finding new products to try and incorporate, I also love having products that I can rely on and know, from experience, are totally worth it.

Enjoy!

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