Makin' Vegan Cheeze Pt.1

I would imagine that when people become Vegan, particularly if it is for health reasons as opposed to ethical, the foods you would miss the most would be cheese, bacon, milk chocolate. Or at least, that's mine.

So, imagine my joy when I discovered that you can buy - prepackaged! - vegan cheese, or cheeze with a 'z' as is the way with the world of vegan food. Redwood and Bute Island (there's is called Sheese, as in, sheese, this stuff isn't bad! Or maybe not.) both make some great hard cheezes, flavoured like Parmesan, Cheddar, Blue and a more melty Mozzarella. 

To be completely honest, whilst they do a good job of fooling the eyes that, yes, your pizza or spaghetti bolognese really does have grated cheese on it, they don't have the taste nor the texture of true cheese. This is to be expected. The cheeze is made without any dairy produce. As we all know, dairy produce gives you a rich, and, well, dairy flavour. It also can give you high cholesterol, weight gain etc. In a pinch, these pre-packed vegan cheezes are OK and, if you didn't tell your strictly carnivorous neighbour, he might not guess.

So, what's the alternative?

As someone who is always looking to make the best of a meal with her the ingredients of her own cupboard, rather than using pre-made, I went a-(vegan)hunting. And, thanks to VegNews 13 Most Decadent Recipes ever, I was firstly directed to Erin at Olives for Dinner with her delicious Deep-Fried Vegan Macaroni Cheese and then her Vegan Grilled Cheese. As if this wasn't enough, the aforementioned VegNews also encouraged me to make my OWN Artisan Vegan Cheese, courtesy of Miyoko Schinner.