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I’m dyin’ for Daiya!

July 10th, 2010

Last year, I stumbled across a post on the Mothering.com discussion boards about substitutes for cheese for those of us who avoid dairy. The general consensus seemed to be that I needed to get my hands on Daiya cheese, however I could.

It wasn’t available in retail packets in the US (it’s Canadian), but several sites sold it online in 1lb bags. I bought both the mozzarella and cheddar style. We made some pizza, we broiled some nachos, and most of us were delighted to find something that filled that need for cheese. Lucia didn’t care for it at first, but now that she’s had it a few times, she’s delighted with Daiya like the rest of us.

Fast forward to this summer, and Daiya has hit US markets — it’s in Whole Foods, local health stores, and our food coop catalog. Yipee!

Why are we excited? Because we avoid dairy, we now skip traditional “treat” foods that include grilled cheese sandwiches, tacos, burritos, pizza, nachos and more. Daiya allows us to enjoy all those foods with a cheese substitute that isn’t as heavy, rubbery or greasy as your standard pizza or nacho cheese, it’s made with ingredients that aren’t liked to cancer and other health conditions, and it MELTS!

I let the pizza cool too much to get a good stretchy picture, but you can visit the Daiya website for some lovely images of just that.

Daiya Shreds are made entirely from plant-based ingredients and are FREE. Oh, was that misleading? No, not like you’re hoping (it costs around $5 for 8 oz in stores), but check this list out:

Cholesterol free
Trans Fat free
Dairy free
Free of all animal products (Vegan)
Free of common allergens including:
- Soy, Casein, Lactose, Gluten, Egg, Wheat, Barley, Whey, Rice, and Nuts
Free of Artificial Ingredients
Free of Preservatives
Free of Hormones & Antibiotics

The full list of ingredients for the cheddar style shreds are as follows:

Filtered water, tapioca and/or arrowroot flours, non-GMO expeller pressed canola and /or non-GMO expeller pressed safflower oil, coconut oil, pea protein, salt, inactive yeast, vegan natural flavors, vegetable glycerin, xanthan gum, citric acid (for flavor), annatto.

By no means am I suggesting this this is something to eat to bring about optimal health and nutrition. This isn’t a product to consume on a daily basis, and I’m still wary of ingredients listed as “natural flavors” even when they’re preceded by the word “vegan”. Ditto for glycerin, xanthan gum and citric acid. This is a processed food, something we avoid on a regular basis. However, when invited to a pizza party, it’s much easier on the kids if they have pizza to eat, and easier on me if I am not concerned about the effects of wheat and dairy on their systems.

You can see the pizza before we cooked it — Bob’s Red Mill GF Pizza Crust (made with ground flax instead of eggs) topped with tomato sauce and mozzerella Daiya. See all the lovely individual shreds? Honestly, it smells better and tastes better to me than most of the rubbery stuff you can get in the local supermarket, be it Kraft, Sargento or Organic Valley.

Then we cooked it — we baked the crust for about 15 minutes first, then pulled it, added the sauce and cheese, and popped it back in for 5 more minutes or so until the cheese was melty and bubbly. Click on this picture to see the enlarged version. If you have cut dairy from your diet for health or ethical reasons, but miss the meltiness and tanginess of cheese topping on your pizza, this is some serious food porn.

Yum, yum and more YUM!

Comments ( 6 )

cheese, gluten free, pizza, vegan

Soup, It’s What’s For Lunch

June 5th, 2010

I really love Gatlin’s interpretation of my lunch today. He called it a plate of sunshine. I made River and Gatlin veggie soup (cooked) and myself another one of Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen recipes called Tomato Basil Bisque. I had actually made the soup the evening before and was having the leftovers.

Raw foods are interesting in that as time goes by, the flavors of dishes change and meld together. I have had some dishes that I didn’t care for after making them but a day or even two later they are smashing. The same seems to hold true for Ani’s Bisque. I liked it better day two. The kids didn’t really care for it day one but Gatlin said, “Not bad” this next day at lunch. Neither of them still ate a bowl.

Instead, Gatlin devoured my rays of sunshine! I sliced red pepper and stuffed it with a simple homemade guacomole. He loves these as do I. River is my simple kind of man. He likes just straight up red pepper and lots of it. He does like guacomole but not tampering with his red pepper.

Tomato Basil Bisque

bisque base

3 tomatoes, chopped
2 cloves garlic
1 1/2 c. olive oil
2 tsp sea salt
2 c. water

bisque toppings

1 tomato, diced
1 c. basil chiffonade

blend bisque base ingredients until smooth
pour into four bowls and top with tomatoes and basil

Did your eyes pop when you read 1 1/2 c. oil? Mine did, but I followed the recipe. Whoooo, too much oil. I would at least half the oil next time. It had mellowed by the next day but still way too heavy for me. I also didn’t have another tomato to dice for the top so I made and ate only the base. It would be really good with the basil and diced tomatoes on top but would lend itself well to other toppings as well.

A new cut: chiffonade, for those that are unfamiliar, is a way of cutting the basil. It will create long, thin strips. I like to take a few basil leaves and lay them on top of one another. Roll them up together and then cut thinly from the short end to the longer end. This looks decorative as all the strips will be of equal width. Basil is a tender herb so cutting it chiffonade also helps not to bruise the basil.

Enjoy!

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WOW: nettles

May 23rd, 2010

Grab those garden gloves — it’s time for a new feature on crunchybits! Welcome to our first Weed of the Week — Nettles!

We’ve already talked about the health benefits of nettle infusions. This humble herb helps with respiratory troubles, allergic reactions, arthritis, skin problems, kidney stones and bladder infections. but the uses of nettles don’t stop there. You can steep nettle stalks in a bucket of water for a few weeks until fermentation stops (once there are no more bubbles when you stir) and use a dilution of this pungent “tea” as a foliar feed or soil fertilizer for your plants.

In addition to the feeding and healing people and their vegetable patches, nettles have been used for more than 2000 years to make things like rope, paper or cloth. And they can dye the fabric too! The leaves will give a green color, while the roots boiled with salt or alum yield a lovely yellow.

Nettles attract a number of butterflies, who lay their eggs on the plant so their caterpillars have a tasty, nutritious start on life. Once the plants go to seed, the birds will visit your patch to dine. So it has a place in your wildlife garden too!

Here in CT, nettles been out for a few months, and the patches we’ve expanded in the garden are producing nicely. Although today Dante asked me not to do that again because getting around the garden in shorts and with bare feet isn’t as pleasant as before where the nettles were primarily outside the fence and just inside at one corner.

We’ve been using them primarily in our smoothies, but last week I found a nettle soup recipe in a library cookbook Love Soup by Anna Thomas. I adapted it a bit, and am posting the resulting recipe below. It was delicious, and Dante and Luke ate a couple of bowls. Lucia didn’t care for it, but said she will try it again next time.Something about it reminds me of homemade chicken and rice soup from my childhood.

Nettle Soup

2 large onions, diced
4 cloves garlic
4 carrots, diced
4 stalks celery, diced
4 yukon gold potatoes, diced
1 cup lentils
1 cup millet
6-8 leaves kale, chopped
4 cups chopped nettles
water or broth
salt to taste

Saute onions on medium low heat until they start to brown.
Meanwhile chop and measure out everything but the greens.
Once the onions turn translucent, add the carrots, celery and potato and stir occasionally for about 5 minutes.
Add the garlic and stir, cooking for one minute.
Add water and/or broth to cover and bring to a boil.
Add lentils and millet, stir and reduce to a simmer.
After about 20 minutes, add chopped greens and remove from heat.

I didn’t want to add any spices so I could taste the subtle flavor of the nettles, but I think next time round I would add some fresh herbs. And possibly more nettles.

Happy harvesting — don’t forget to wear thick gloves or proceed with caution!

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bonbons @ the cinema

May 20th, 2010

A few days ago, we had a family outing to the Parkade Cinemas in Manchester to see Avatar. Luke and I had gone to the Buckland Hills IMAX 3-D to watch this movie in all it’s cinematographic glory. All the other IMAX movies we’ve seen have been at museums with a true IMAX screen — the big, 5 story screen that covers your entire field of vision. The dinky screen at Buckland left us underwhelmed to say the least.

Dante wanted to see it on the big screen, therefore so did Lucia, so we found the plain ole 2-D non-IMAX version playing at the Parkade Cinemas. I went along to cover Lulu’s eyes or give a cuddle during some of the more intense scenes. The kids loved the flora and fauna of Pandora, and are now distraught that they will never fly their own “bird dinosaurs” as the characters do in the film.

We like this theater because the prices are reasonable ($6.75 adults, $4.75 children, seniors, and any show before 4pm every day), and since it’s a second-run theater we get a chance to catch things we missed.

We’ve seen a number of movies there, but haven’t had a chance to check out a small shop nearby that I’d read about online. This time, we arrived with a half hour to spare, so I drove on into the Stop n Shop plaza parking lot on West Middle Turnpike and cruised the strip mall til I found my target. We all piled out of the car and into a treat for the tastebuds — Divine Treasures chocolates. All of their chocolates are made right in the store, using no corn syrup, refined sugars, or trans-fats, while they do use organic Belgian chocolate and offer dairy-free and gluten-free treats.

They have a case of sugar free chocolates that are made with whey, but since we’re avoiding dairy, we turned our gaze to the larger cases of vegan chocolates. We oohed and aahed over the huge selection, and learned that they sell ice cream too. Vegan ice cream. Made with cashews and almonds! It’s rare to find a place that we can get ice cream out and about, so we split a sundae, opting for the chocolate instead of cherry ice cream, and had hot fudge and caramel sauce on top. We also ordered a few pieces of chocolate — Dante picked one that looked like a gift package that was filled with pomegranate jelly. Lucia went for a sea shell shape that was filled with chocolate ganache. I opted for the toffee bits embedded in a bar of chocolate, and Luke picked the Health Bar, which I think is supposed to be a healthier version of a heath bar and seemed like my choice with some finely shredded chocolate on top. I also got a Thai chocolate but can’t recall what it has in it — perhaps coconut, perhaps chilies, I forget and we haven’t eaten it yet.

So next time you’re in Manchester, indulge yourself! Head to the strip mall for some organic chocolate, and then head to Parkade for that movie you missed last month!