Cheese (Dairy Free)

This cheese is an attempt to have a pizza-friendly cheese. I’ve seen a number of recipes online which use similar ingredients (and another I’m awaiting being able to hopefully purchase some ingredients to give it a try as I don’t have on hand what I need to make it) and end up with something you can supposedly slice, grate, shred, melt, or other wise use a cheese, but which aren’t made with cow or other bovine milk and are available to those on any number of diets (vegan, paleo, gluten free, dairy free, whole 30, keto, low carb, diabetic, for example)

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 Can Full Fat Coconut milk
• 3 TBSP Unflavored Gelatin powder
• 2 TBSP Coconut Flour
• 1 TBSP Nutritional Yeast
• 1 tsp salt
• OPTIONAL: add a pinch (to taste) of Thyme and Onion Powder. NOTE: this helps especially if you dislike the nutritional yeast flavor! Other flavor enhancing options? Try a bit of mustard powder, “Unami” seasoning, a bit of liquid from canned olives, and/or sauerkraut juice.

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Locate the bowl you are going to use, when you’ve finished the process, to “mold (or shape)” the cheese into the shape you desire. Some ideas include a round, glass bowl, or perhaps a mini “loaf” pan for cracker sized slices. I’m planning on using this for shredding so the size and shape do not matter. But you will need the bowl handy when the time is right. Set it next to the stove top in easy reach.
2. Measure all the ingredients. No need to mix first. Just place them into a medium size pan, as you measure the correct amount of each ingredient, adding them in the order listed above directly into your sauce pan. It should look more or less like this:
   
   
3. Place the pan over medium heat while you are stirring to mix the ingredients together. NOTE: the consistency of the mixture, before cooking, is roughly like fat-head dough. In fact it is so much like fat head dough it made me wonder if I can do something similar to make a vegan fat-head dough. Anyway, back to our cheese recipe at hand, once the mixture is fully stirred, continue stirring while you turn up the heat to medium or medium-high. Keep stirring.
   
   
4. Stir and heat. You are looking for that mixture to reach a full “boil” and you want to boil the mixture for a minimum of 3 minutes. Once you’ve hit the 3 minute mark, time wise (and I do suggest timing it), dump it quickly into your awaiting bowl which is going to serve as the shape mold for the resulting vegan cheese.
5. Now cover the cheese.
6. Place in the fridge. As it cools your vegan cheese will firm up and will become a texture you can slice and you’ll also be able to shred it to use it on pizza, etc. or in recipes.

TIPS:

• FLAVOR: Experiment with adding optional depth of flavor with these suggested trials: add a pinch to taste of one or more of the following spices/flavorings: Thyme, Onion Powder, mustard powder, “Unami” seasoning, a bit of liquid from canned olives, or a bit of sauerkraut juice.
• COLOR: This “cheese” is a mozzarella style cheese. However, you can play around a bit with this and get different color cheeses. Who says cheese has to be white or whitish? Other things to try? Annatto Oil (warm for a few minutes 1.5 TBSP of annatto seeds in 1/4 cup quality oil until the spice extrudes into the oil. Store and use. P.S. Annatto is the normal food-safe colorant in cheddar cheeses.) Turmeric. Mustard Powder. Or something creative like beet juice! or Spinach! Who says just because milk is white cheese has to be? It tastes the same, hm?
• TEXTURE: Need a smoother result? Use an immersion blender to blend everything instead of a whisk, while stirring and cooking. I found this texture to be okay as is!
• SHAPE: Play around with the “molds” you use. There are, for example, long barrel shaped silicone ice cube makers, made especially for making ice for water bottles. These may be fun to put this mozzarella like cheese into and mold into a string-cheese style shaped snack cheese.

RESULTS:

• BATCH SIZE: The yield on this is okay. It is neither expensive to do nor does it make too much to use in a reasonable time frame.
• FREEZER FRIENDLY: I will test (and report later) on freeze capability (both as is, and shredded) to see how it works for food prep and storage.
• PIZZA: To use this recipe to make pizza (snack, or larger) simply thaw some of the faux tomato sauce we made previously, spread over a the dinner roll recipe I made last week, a low-carb  gluten-free tortilla, or cassava crust recipe made up. Then add your favorite toppings and shred this cheese atop. Bake as you normally would. This cheese will melt and turn back to a more solid shape when cooled.
• SNACK: To snack, use the cheese as is. Remember to play around with the flavorings and molds to achieve the desired shapes and taste you prefer. If you happen to have a mini loaf pan, that size is perfect for slicing onto crackers. I happened to find a mini-loaf pan for $0.25 at a thrift store! Cannot beat that for a cheese mold!
• FREEZER? (testing this–will report soon)
• FUTURE: I have a few more vegan cheeses I’m going to try over time.

This cheese sets up well, was super easy to remove from the glass dish (it came out whole), and shreds easily with my normal cheese shredder. The shredder was also easy to clean up afterwards.  The shredded cheese melted nicely. The cheese sliced tasted okay and the texture was ok too. 

Breakfast Sausage Patties (Turkey)

This recipe, while super easy to make, and fabulous in its texture, is nothing special. It left me less than impressed. It may be worthy of tweaking, or I may find another recipe which is better. Nevertheless, recording I recently made it, how I made it, so I don’t duplicate efforts.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 pound ground turkey
• 1/2 TBSP Maple Syrup
• 1/2 tsp fennel seeds
• 1/2 tsp parsley
• 1/2 tsp poultry seasoning
• 1/4 tsp Real Salt
• 1/4 tsp onion powder
• 1/8 tsp black pepper

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Assemble all of the ingredients.
2. In a bowl, combine all of the spices and mix well.
3. Drain any blood from meat package, and combine meat with seasonings in the bowl.
4. Divide into 6 portions.
5. Cook on a griddle pan, a few minutes each side until the edges are done and no longer pink, then flipping and cooking the second side for the same time on the additional size.
6. Drain off blood and grease while cooking. A serving size is one patty.

TIPS:

• The fennel seeds, whole, in this recipe seemed a bit too sparse to taste throughout. If I made this recipe again, I would either increase the amount of fennel, or crush it or grind it, before adding to the recipe.
  • For my taste buds, the maple syrup was too sweet in this recipe and not needed. If I make this again, I’d leave it out.
  • The salt/pepper taste was too mild. This is what makes the sausage, sausage. If I made this recipe again, I would increase both.
  • This recipe could benefit from increasing the spices ratio to meat.
  • This recipe works well for “breakfast sandwiches” or for things like faux fried potatoes (cooked up with onions, green cactus, turnips and sausage; with or without kale or spinach tossed in)
  • While I did not attempt to freeze this recipe, it appears to be something which could easily freeze/thaw quite well without any issues.
  • It cooks up super nice! It is so easy. It holds together well.