Cheese Glorious Cheese!

Yikes I noticed that it's been a while since my last post – what have I been up to? I've got a lot going on in my life these days, a career I enjoy, working out with a personal trainer, I'm taking a pottery class, reading and now that Spring is kinda here just doing more outside.

All that aside it doesn't mean I haven't been cooking and trying new recipes – we have. I've been wanting to make my own vegan cheese for a while now and last weekend I finally gathered together all of the ingredients to do it. Besides, it was cold and rainy and doing something in the kitchen seemed like a nice distraction from the crummy weather.

I decided on 3 small ramekins of almond cheese; garlic, onion and chive, roasted red pepper and basil and my favorite red pepper and rosemary. You can find the recipes for these cheeses here (well except in these recipes it called for sundried tomatoes – yet somehow I came home with roasted red peppers – don't ask).

While the small batch theory is good, especially if it's your first attempt at cheese making, the process is a bit putzy for the end result. But as I said it was a cold day and being outside wasn't an option.

The results were mixed. The onion, garlic and chive were a bit bland and the flavors didn't really come through. The chives were fresh from the garden but I would opt for fresh garlic instead of the garlic powder next time to enhance the flavor. 

The flavor of the roasted red pepper with basil was good, next time I might actually roast my own peppers first to add a smoky flavor to it or use sundried tomatoes. Either way it was a nice flavor combination.

The final cheese; pepper with rosemary was my favorite; although I made a slight error when making it. The recipe called for a ½ teaspoon of agar powder and I inadvertently put in 1 teaspoon so it was a bit firmer than the others but the combination of the red pepper flakes and the rosemary was delicious. 

All in all it was successful and dinner became appetizer night, which is one of my favorite dinners – all those flavors rolled into one meal. My next cheese-making attempt will be with cashews and after that vegan sausage – looking forward to more experiments in the kitchen.

Gardening season will be starting soon – I've already started my acorn squash, it was our best crop last year – over 25 squash; yes we were those people who were leaving squash on the neighbors doorstep. No one seemed to mind tho.