Friday 28 November 2014

Cheeses (plus pizza and chocolates).

I think the response I hear most when I tell people I'm vegan is "I could never give up cheese"! I get that, cheese is mighty tasty. I loved eating cheese too and found it hard to give up, and most vegans I speak to say that cheese was the last thing to give up. I have tried various (vegan) cheeses, mostly the Cheezly varieties, some are better than others. Recently I tried the Vegusto Melty, everybody says it's great, not me! I thought it was ok, again, better than some others, but not *that* good. And the other 2 that aren't *too* bad are the Tofutti American and Mozzarella, again, ok.
So I decided to bite the bullet and shell out a shitload of cash to try the 4 cheese varieties I have heard everybody rave about: Daiya, Notzarella, Bio Cheese and The Loving Hut Aussie Vegan Cheddar. 
I have tried all of them raw.

The Daiya was not great raw, and despite it being soy-free I felt it smelt quite soy-like.
The Notzarella didn't really taste like anything, which I thought was good as mozzarella doesn't really have much of a flavour.

The Bio Cheese was fairly good, still had a mild soy taste, but much better than most others. I can see why people have been going crazy over it. I really liked the way it cut, it is nice and firm and that was a nice change.
An finally the Loving Hut Aussie Vegan Cheddar. this one I was the most skeptical about, but I found it fairly decent actually. Not as firm to cut as the Bio, but not much softer.
All blocks grated fairly well, especially the Bio, the Notzarella was a bit soft and more difficult to grate, but that didn't really surprise me.
The Bio and Loving Hut cheeses will be pretty good in toasties and on crackers, so that is a win and the Daiya was much better cooked than raw, though I was disappointed that it didn't melt that well and did not go stringy as promised on the pack. The Bio seemed to melt the best.
So to test all of these guys I made pizzas, something I'm not normally that in to, but in the interest of testing new products I figured this would be a great way to do it. The Daiya was definitely my fave in this regard. Now I will have to find some other cheesy recipes to test and use all of them before they go off.

Now for the chocolate.
Go Max Go chocolates are some of the best I have ever tasted, vegan or not, I love them!! Cleo's are peanut butter cups, Jokerz are a Snickers style and the Thumbs Up are a Butterfingers style, my favourite! The others I like of theirs are the Twilight (Mars bar) and Buccaneers (kind of like Milky Way). At around $4 per bar they aren't cheap, but they are so incredibly worth it! The only problem is I just want to eat them al, NOW!!

I got this haul form Vegan Online, my favourite online vegan store. They do ship cold products over night express which costs around $27, again, not cheap, but worth it if you REALLY want stuff!

If you live in the Launceston area and shop at The Organic Grocery Store on Hobart Road at Kings Meadows they order vegan produce from Vegan Perfection and these guys have started stocking Go Max Go Bars (YAY!), the Organic Grocer will order in stuff from VP for you so you don't have to pay for shipping (DOUBLE YAY!!). VP were going to stock Daiya, but so far this hasn't happened, hopefully they will start stocking that and Bio Cheese, this is my hope :)




Cheese overload pizza.
Top left: Daiya
Top right: all 4
Bottom right: Notzarella
Bottom middle: Bio
Bottom left: Loving Hut
Notzarella and Daiya with mushrooms, capsicum, pineapple and onion.




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