Vegan Cheese Night
another party
College students don’t tend to throw relaxed or classy parties. I don’t mean to generalize or sound critical—it’s just the truth. There is beauty in the fact that Jose Cuervo and Oreos represent the no frills nature of college parties. No matter how much money your parents have, we pile into somebody’s cramped apartment, bop to a mix of pop and rap that everybody seems to know, and have fun without an air of pretentiousness. I tend to enjoy myself in these crowded rooms, but every now and then, I’ll look around, and wonder if anyone else feels like this style of socializing is getting stale. A party that isn’t centered around a liquor table or rage cage would be nice. And dancing is probably my favorite part, but there’s a limit to how many times you can enjoy “Gasolina,” you know? The clock strikes midnight and sometimes I want to go to sleep.
Which is why I like substituting the rage cage style of partying with the let’s-sit-on-my-rug-and-have-vegan-cheese-and-crackers style of partying. The latter is more of a small gathering, so it’s a substitution for those of us who crave intimacy. This isn’t to say that the former style of partying can’t be intimate in its own way, but it’s different. We can tell stories about our first race, first concert, first time driving. We can drink cheap wine not to get drunk, but because we’re wine connoisseur wannabes who just turned 21 and want to test if we can sense the notes listed on the bottle (we usually can’t). We can sway to the new Taylor Swift album and pause every few minutes to speculate what the song is about. And we can consume vegan cheese!
Cheese is one of those things that keeps people from going plant-based. While the commercial options for vegan cheese have expanded in recent years, some options can get pricey. The people who complain about how expensive it is to be vegan are probably looking at vegan cheese, vegan butter, vegan yogurt, etc. These items will be expensive for the time being, at least while the dairy industry continues to be heavily subsidized for the wrong reasons, but that’s an issue for another newsletter.
Cheese is just fat, salt, and tang. Vegans also eat fat, salt, and tang. So making vegan cheese requires some thought about which ingredients carry the flavors we crave. Alicia Kennedy’s piece about vegan cheese for Eater describes the tiers of vegan cheese:
Tier 1:
“nonfermented oil-and-starch vegan cheese that you can find at most grocery stores”
Tier 2:
“cultured, or fermented, plant milk cheese, which is made by adding probiotics and enzymes to nut or oat milk in order to create curds and whey”
Tier 3:
“Small-batch artisan vegan cheese…A nut is soaked and then blended with water to create a milk base, to which a culture is added. The cultured milk is left to ferment, forming a curd. After the curd is drained through a cheesecloth, it is molded into whatever shape the cheesemaker desires.”
If you’re making vegan cheese at home, the key is to use ingredients that are already funky and acidic. For umami, my go-tos are nutritional yeast and white miso. For acid, I like lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, or my recent favorite: the liquid that houses capers or pickles. I hear sauerkraut brine or plant-based yogurt assists fermentation because of their probiotic content, so the first recipe uses a little plant-based yogurt.
The first recipe is a cashew cheese wheel built for the cheese board. Add the cheese to a cute little plate and slice it with a cute little knife and eat it on cute little crackers.
My favorite cheese recipe is tofu ricotta because it’s so economical. It costs almost nothing more than a block of tofu. I understand that nuts can be expensive in some areas (I highly recommend buying them from Costco if you have access to one), so tofu is a great alternative. The other flavors end up overpowering the taste of the tofu.
recipe – cashew cheese wheel
1/2 cup cashews
2 tbsp unsweetened plant-based yogurt
1 tbsp coconut oil
1 tbsp tahini
1 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp smoked paprika
1 tbsp dijon mustard
1.5 tbsp nutritional yeast
1/2 tbsp white miso
2 tbsp caper juice (or acid of your choice)
1/2 tbsp agar agar with 1/2 cup water
Soak the cashews or don’t. It depends on how strong your food processor is, but soaking them in hot water for 15 minutes or so doesn’t hurt.
Process the cashews with everything except for agar agar and water.
Add agar agar and water to a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and stir it for a minute. Pour immediately into the processor. Process until smooth.
Pour into a medium bowl and refrigerate it until set. I find that it tastes better with time.
recipe - tofu ricotta
This recipe makes quite a bit. Using about half a block of tofu should serve ~6-8 as an appetizer.
1 block of firm tofu, pressed for 30 minutes (the less moisture the better!)
2 tbsp olive oil or melted coconut oil
1 tbsp lemon juice and 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar (you could also do 2 tbsp of either one)
2 tbsp nutritional yeast
1 tbsp white miso
¼ tsp black pepper
Pinch of garlic powder, dried herbs (optional)
Salt to taste
Just process everything together. Taste as you go. Adjust acid, nutritional yeast and miso, and salt levels to your liking. Make it as smooth or chunky as you want. No rules here.
Shape it! You can make a cheese log or a sphere (as pictured in the first photo) by wrapping it in seran wrap and letting it sit in the fridge for at least a few hours.
SPICE RACK
dishing on the favorites
cooking: Brothy beans, with Alison Roman’s recipe because I just wanted to see what all the rage was about. I’m not sure if my beans were old or if I did it wrong, but they were alright. And broccoli soup, which tasted way better than it should have. I boiled broccoli, cooked some onions and garlic, and blended that with a bit of the above cashew cheese, nutritional yeast, oregano, and black pepper. There might have been a few more ingredients but I can’t remember.
drinking: It is sore throat week, so that means hot matchas and haldi doodh (what some may refer to as a “golden milk latte” but I refuse to accept that name).
reading:
DREAMERS IN BROAD DAYLIGHT: TEN CONVERSATIONS
The Unbearable Whiteness of the Local Food Movement
Ukraine Is Showing the World How Small Farmers Can Fix Our Broken Food System
Two pieces on how to cook dried beans: by Naturally Ella and Rancho Gordo
listening:
Taylor Swift’s ‘Midnights’: Listener Mailbag (NYT Popcast) - People get very analytical and I am here for it.
Bean There, Done That (Home Cooking with Samin Nosrat and Hrishikesh Hirway) - lol can you tell I’m going through a beans phase
Marion Nestle Talks Food Politics and Her New Memoir, “Slow Cooked” (Radio Cherry Bombe)