Vegan Cottage Cheese

Cottage cheese somehow tasted best in Israel. As kids, we all grew up eating it for breakfast, on a slice of simple bread or with an omelette, or for dinner with some vegetables on the side. To this day, few meals are as Israeli to me as some cottage cheese with a sliced tomato. Thanks to the one and only Noa Shalev and her amazing vegan cheese course (which you absolutely must take), we now have fresh cottage cheese at home, made from tofu and a few other ingredients! Preparation can be very simple or multi-step, depending on whether you rely on homemade yogurt and mayo or purchased ones, but since I always have a batch of homemade yogurt and had Hampton Creek's Just Mayo in the fridge, it was a cinch. This works best with pink Himalayan salt and a touch of lemon juice.

Shavuot

Check out our awesome Shavuot table! We just finished hosting our Shavuot party, which is apparently not a huge deal in the United States. I suspect there are two reasons: its lack of proximity to a heavily commercialized Christian holiday (this, after all, is how Hanukkah became such a big deal) and its strong ties to the land (it's a harvest holiday.) In kibbutzim and moshavim there's often a nice parade of first fruits of the year (including the babies born that year) and elsewhere in the country people celebrate with a dairy meal. Why dairy? Apparently, the word חלב״ chalav" (milk), in Jewish numerology, adds up to 40, and Moses was on Mount Sinai 40 days.

I took the challenge seriously and put together a holiday party for our friends featuring a whole array of vegan cheeses, which I learned how to make in Noa Shalev's awesome vegan cheese course (you should take it, so cough up the 350 NIS and do it.) A lot of improvisation went into this - my cheese flavors are original inventions, save for the spirulina one, and my raw cashew cheesecakes are variations on the lemon-lavender cake I made a couple of weeks ago following Noa's recipe. This time I made mango-basil cake and strawberry-thyme cake. All I did was replace the flavoring. I glanced at one of my new books, The Vegetarian Flavor Bible, to match fruit and herbs, but I find that I already have a pretty good gut feeling about combinations.

Anyway, from bottom to top: green salad with avocado, nectarines, and strawberries, dressed in quince vinegar from Nan at Vermont Quince; spiralized salad of cucumber, carrot, beet, and radish, dressed in a mix of good mustard and Nan's quince salsa; cauliflower ceviche; "chevre" cheeseballs flavored with nigella, chimichurri, za'atar, zchug, and ras-el-hanout; leek-mushroom quiche with chickpea base; vegan lasagna with tofu ricotta: four hard cheeses, flavored with spirulina, turmeric-cumin, miso, and garlic-zchug; breads and crackers; and the aforementioned raw cakes.

A good time was had by all!

Flavored Macadamia Cheeses

You guys, I am beside myself with enthusiasm about Noa Shalev's vegan cheese course. If you're a Hebrew speaker, cough up the 350 NIS and join the course. It's so worthwhile. Noa is a fountain of knowledge about fermentation and culturing and about nutrition in general, and her recipes rock!

I'm amidst the process of making hard cheeses, which Noa advises to make from macadamia nuts. I made two kinds: cheeses that I hope to age in the dehydrator and then in the fridge, so that they develop "body" and a rind, and slightly softer cheese balls rolled in spices.

I hesitate to reproduce the recipe, because I really want you all to take this course, but I'll just mention that Noa ages her cheese with probiotic capsules, which is a convenient method, especially if you don't have it in you to make rejuvelac or squeeze sauerkraut juices.

This bleu cheese is made with spirulina, and one of the things I've learned is that a little spirulina goes a very long way. That's not a tiny cheese, and I put half a teaspoon of spirulina in it. It brings a bit of that moldy taste into the cheese and looks like the original. I'm quite thrilled with it!

This cheese is my effort at a yellow hue, which I achieved with turmeric. I also threw in some cumin and coriander, because I really like that combination. Next time I'll do this with jalapeño bits, I think.

Once these cheeses harden in the fridge, I'll put them in a dehydrator for 24-48 hours, and then I'll age them further in the fridge. Delayed gratification.

These ones we can eat right away: cheese balls with all kinds of spices and flavorings. Here are my combinations:

ras-el-hanout
za'atar
zchug
chimichurri
nigella seeds-onion
oregano-garlic
sumac-cumin-coriander

Cashew "White Cheese"

Many Israelis' childhoods include a classic culinary staple: gvinah levanah ("white cheese"), a soft and light cheese to spread over bread or eat with vegetables. It typically came in 5% and 10% fat variations, and there were numerous versions with herbs and spices.

With the help of Noa Shalev's wonderful nondairy cheeses and milks course, I produced a cheese yesterday that tastes even better than the original. The key is to use probiotic capsules for the fermentation. I used two capsules (approximately 30 million microorganisms) for about a cup of soaked and blended cashews. I flavored the resulting cheese with salt, orange juice, nutritional yeast, and fresh marjoram.

Homemade Almond Milks

This month I'm happily taking Noa Shalev's terrific vegan cheese course. Just from the ingredient list I could tell that I'd learn a lot. And indeed, it's a fantastic course, chock-full of nutritional knowledge and kitchen tricks, and of course marvelous recipes.

I won't reveal the recipes themselves, because I want you to take the full course and learn for yourselves, but I did want to offer a sneak peak into the world of homemade almond milks. Noa recommends adding a bit of vegan lechitin to the blender, because lechitin binds both with the water and with the fat in the almonds. On the left: turmeric-goldenberry milk. On the right: hibiscus-vanilla milk. Both flavors are fantastic and unusual.

The organizers of a big potluck party I'm attending tonight divided the food assignments by birth month, and I was bummed out for half a second that the November people got beverages, as I love to cook (could you guess that? :D). But then I decided to bring creative, made-from-scratch drinks, and I hope people will dig these. The hibiscus flavor is especially delectable.

Vegetable-Based Mac 'n' Cheese

This vegan "cheese" sauce is very easy to make and absolutely delicious. And the surprising part is - no soy or cashew is involved!

The recipe comes verbatim from Brand New Vegan, where you can find many such delights. I simplified it a bit for you and upped the carrot content at the expense of the potatoes. This will have a fair amount of protein on account of the nutritional yeast, but if you'd like more protein you can make lentil pasta to go with it.

2 medium-sized potatoes
5-6 medium-sized carrots
1/2 water from cooking the potatoes and carrots
¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tsp quince vinegar (the original recipe called for apple cider vinegar, but we ran out
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp onion powder
2 cloves garlic 
1/2 tsp brown mustard
1/4 tsp turmeric

Cut potatoes and carrots into cubes and boil in water for 10 minutes. With slotted spoon, transfer potatoes and carrots to blender and add 1/2 cup water from the pot, and pulse to mix. Then, add all other ingredients and blend until smooth.

Cook pasta (I like lentil pasta for this - nutritious and yummy) and drain; return pasta to pot. Pour sauce over pasta and mix well.

Labaneh

Cooking food from countries affected by the travel ban gave me a wonderful feeling of inner peace--both as a private person with people of all nationalities who love to cook and eat good food, and as someone who tries to contribute a little bit to more compassion in the kitchen. Imagine my joy, therefore, when I heard about Kifah Duski's new book Peace in the Kitchen, which features vegan Arab cooking.

Kifah is originally from the village of Faradis, which is very close to where my parents live; she moved to Tel Aviv for university and, from there, to Prague, where she currently lives. The book is divided into three parts, each for each transition in her life. The Faradis recipes are homey, the Tel Aviv recipes are quick and appropriate for a student kitchen, and the Prague recipes a bit more elaborate and haute-cuisine-ish.

Some of the recipes are not new to me, as I've been cooking Middle Eastern food for a long time. But some are completely new, and some feature new forms to make stuff I've been making forever. For example, Kifah's version of shakshuka doesn't feature thin tofu slices (which is how I've been making it) but "egg whites" made of soy and "egg yolks" made of chickpea flour, all layered to look like real eggs.

The book is written in both Hebrew and Arabic. I really wish it came in an English version, because many of my non-Middle-Eastern friends will find stuff there that will dramatically expand their horizons beyond what's served here in Arab restaurants.

The most impressive recipe in the book, for me, is the labaneh, because I've been craving this sour, fermented soft cheese for a very long time. Here it is, in its vegan splendor:

1 cup blanched almonds, soaked overnight
1/2 cup raw cashews, soaked overnight
1/2 cup soy beans, soaked overnight
1/4 cup olive oil
juice from 2 large lemons
water
salt

Place all ingredients except water and salt in food processor and process. Gradually add water until achieving the desired consistency (I like it kind of robust, like fromage blanc) and salt to taste. The original recipe calls for refrigeration, but I left my batch out of the fridge for the night to culture, and it greatly improved its taste and resemblance to the dairy original. Serve with a sprinkle of za'atar.

Herb Cashew Cheese Without Culturing

I was going to open this post with a pun about how, in the next four years, we'll have learn to do without culture... (thanks, folks, I'll be here all week) but the truth is that my almond feta efforts earlier this week backfired and I wanted to make a quick cashew cheese with no culturing period. Enter The Buddhist Chef, whose recipe videos are clear and wonderful, and his vegan cheese recipe.

One of the many nice things about the Buddhist Chef is that his very tasty recipes are really as easy as they look. Even vegans who are not kitchen veterans can use them, and they seem especially wonderful for folks making the initial transition to veganism and looking for replacements for their favorite staples. I modified the recipe a bit to exclude oils and sugars, and to replace some ingredients I didn't have on hand, and the outcome was wonderful.

Step 1: Cheese Mixture

1/2 cup cashews, soaked in hot water for ten minutes (if you don't have a high-powered blender, soak them for longer)

1 tsp herbs de Provence

1 tsp oregano

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp arrowroot powder (the Buddhist Chef suggests cornstarch, and my experience is that these two behave similarly in vegan cheeses)

3 tbsp nutritional yeast

juice from 2 lemons

1/2 cup water

Drain cashews, place all ingredients in blender, blend until silky smooth.

Step 2: Hardening

1/2 cup water

1 1/2 tsp agar flakes

In a saucepan, combine water and agar. Add cheese mix and whisk. Bring to a slow boil while whisking all the time. Pour into silicone muffin pan and place in fridge for at least two hours before inverting.

Green Chai Latte

One of the perks and perils of San Francisco is the stream of culinary novelties. A few weeks ago I set aside my skepticism about our continuous chase after "the cool" and went with a colleague to the David Rio chai bar, where I had a lovely cup of steaming chai. Only one of their recipes is vegan (why, when easily all of them could be, and just as tasty?) but they do have a really nice assortment of nut milks, including soy, almond, hazelnut, and macadamia.

Last time I was there, they had some bottled chai for sale, including an intriguing blend of their green tea chai with chia seeds. I've been ruminating on how to make a homemade version, and today's blended treat came out delicious.

I put all the following in the blender:

2 cups vegan milk (this time I used unsweetened Ripple, which has a very bland and forgiving taste, but any nut milk would work just fine)
1 heaping teaspoon Matcha green tea
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp vanilla extract
a drizzle of maple syrup, or pitted dates to taste)

After blending and pouring into a tall glass, I mixed in a few chia seeds and waited a few moments for them to expand and absorb the liquid. It was delicious: a creamy-but-refreshing afternoon beverage.

Melty Cheddar and Mozzarella

I'm super happy to report that the two cheeses I made--the cheddar and the mozzarella--came out delicious. The recipes are both from Miyoko Schinner's The Homemade Vegan Pantry, which is an excellent book to have at home, and which is the source of my almond yogurt and almond feta recipes as well. The cheeses are great on bread (I served them for breakfast to a meat-eating guest and he dug them), and they also respond very well to cooking: we used the cheddar as gnocchi sauce and the mozzarella in little pizzetas.

The process for making these cheeses is almost identical; the only difference is a slight tweak in ingredients.

Step 1: Create Culturing Liquid

For either the cheddar or the mozz, you'll need one cup of culturing liquid. For my feta, I used juice from sauerkraut, which was a nice time saver; this time, I decided to go all DIY and made my own rejuvelac. This is not a bad idea, seeing as it keeps in the fridge for 3-4 weeks, and also as it produces sprouted quinoa, which you can then use to bake this delightful little roll. Follow the instructions in the previous post to produce the sprouted grains and the rejuvelac; strain the grains out to use in the sprouted bread recipe; and measure one cup of the rejuvelac for use in the cheese.

Step 2: Mix and Culture

Blend into a smooth consistency:
1 cup cashews
1 cup rejuvelac/sauerkraut liquid
1 tsp seasalt
nutritional yeast (1 tbsp for mozz, 3 tbsp for cheddar)
light-colored miso (1 tbsp for mozz, 2 tbsp for cheddar)
an optional tbsp of dried onion for the mozz

Pour into a lidded container, place somewhere away from direct sunlight but in room temperature, and wait a day or two.

The mix is ready for the next step when you notice that it's become a bit soufflé-like: puffy, risen, full of air pockets, thicker.

Step 3: Harden

For this you'll need:
1/2 cup + 2 tbsp water
1 tbsp agar flakes
2 tbsp tapioca starch

Place 1/2 cup water and agar flakes in a lidded pot and bring to a simmer over low heat. Keep lid on for about 3-4 minutes. Then, check to see whether the agar has liquified and is bubbling away. It's important to wait a few minutes for this to happen. Once the agar has bubbled away, incorporate your cultured cheese mix into the pot and whisk to perfection. As this cooks a bit, mix the tapioca starch with 2 tbsp water until dissolved and add to the pot. Continue cooking until the mixture thickens some and becomes shiny and stretchy.

Pour cheese into container (I simply rinse the culturing container and use that; Miyoko recommends using glass) and let harden in the fridge for at least four hours before consuming.

Tofu Halloumi

The success of the feta and my tried-and-true tofu cream "uncheese" made me want to try and recreate another cheese favorite - halloumi, the gummy, salty cheese you can bake or grill to perfection. Turns out someone has already thought about this - the awesome Nada from One Arab Vegan has a great recipe! I made a few modifications to prepare it as follows:

Half a block of extra firm tofu--Hodo Soy extra-firm has the perfect consistency for this dish. It's firm and springy, just like the cheese, and requires very little squeezing.
1-2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
1-2 tsp of sea salt (halloumi is a fairly salty cheese, but we found it a bit too salty for our taste, though after grilling it the flavors worked really well)
2 tbsp nutritional yeast
1/2 tsp dried oregano (Nada's original recipe calls for dried mint, which would've been preferable, but oregano was a tasty substitute)
1/2 tbsp olive oil
Freshly ground black pepper

Press the tofu (though not essential for Hodo Soy). Mix up all other ingredients in a little bowl into a thick, pasty marinade. Slice tofu to 1/8-1/4 inch slices. Layer the slices in a shallow dish and rub the marinade on both sides of each slice. Leave for 20 mins to absorb the flavors.

Nada uses a waffle iron to cook them, but I don't have one. Fortunately, years ago, before I knew anything about cooking, my mom gifted me this amazing grilling pan, and I suspect any pan or griddle will do. Grill the slices for about 5 mins on each side, and you're good to go.

Another idea I had was to do cubes in lieu of slices and put them on mediterranean-style skewers with mushrooms and tomatoes. I'll do that for my next bbq party!

Tofu Ricotta

We spent last weekend being spoiled at the Stanford Inn by the Sea and eating marvelous vegan cuisine at Ravens Restaurant. One of their signature dishes is a ravioli stuffed with tofu ricotta. We ate that dish with delight over the weekend, and were thrilled to see the recipe for this magical ricotta in their newly published cookbook. I just made two cups of it, which I plan to use in a lasagna I'm serving tomorrow to my students, and it came out like a dream:

14oz firm tofu (a whole standard package)
1 tsp olive oil
1/2 cup orange juice
2 tsp orange zest
big handful of basil leaves
5 garlic cloves
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
2 tbsp nutritional yeast

Place all ingredients in the food processor and process until smooth. Do not overprocess, because it will become watery. Use within three days.

Almond Yogurt

This yogurt is the bomb! I've made it several times now and, once you figure out the two-step process, it's easy and yields wonderful tangy yogurt. You can see it in the picture on the left in the blue bowl. The recipe comes from Miyoko Schinner's wonderful book The Homemade Vegan Pantry. And it's pretty fortunate, because while now there are marvelously tasty vegan yogurts available, they are also fairly expensive, and this recipe gives you a nice quart of yogurt for the price of an almond milk carton.

The key thing to remember is not to add the yogurt in Step Two before the contents of the jar cool enough to allow the cultures to do their thing. Beyond that, easy peasy.

1 container unsweetened almond milk
1/3 cup cashews
2 tbsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp agar flakes
2 heaping tbsp vegan yogurt (I use the last of a previous batch; to start the process, you can buy a little container of Kite Hill plain almond yogurt, or any soy yogurt, and use that.)

Step One

Place almond milk, cashews, cornstarch and agar flakes in blender and blend until smooth. Pour into saucepan, place on stove, and whisk while bringing to a simmer. Cook for about 3-4 minutes, until the mix thickens somewhat. Then, turn off the heat and pour the contents of the saucepan into glass jars (I like larger ones.) Place the jars outdoors or on the counter until they chill to 110 degrees (warm, but not hot - so that you can put a finger in the mix comfortably.)

Step Two

When the contents have chilled enough, add the vegan yogurt and mix a bit. Then, close the jars and place them somewhere warm, at about 105-110 degrees. We have an old-fashioned oven, so we just place it inside with the pilot light on; you can put it in a modern oven and turn it on and off, or put it in a dehydrator at a very low temperature, or outside if it's warm. Leave it in the warm space for about 8 hours, then retrieve and place in fridge. The yogurt will continue to thicken in the fridge.

Almond "Feta"

This was a massive pantry day! We made three loaves of seitan--Italian, Berbere, and Cajun--and froze most of them. And I also made almond "feta", which is now happily brining in the fridge.

The recipe comes from Miyoko Schinner's The Homemade Vegan Pantry, which is turning out to be an extremely useful resource. Here's the process:

Step 1

2 cups blanched almonds
1 cup liquid from sauerkraut
a bit of salt

I soaked the almonds for a few hours in water, then drained them and processed in the blender with the liquid and salt. I poured the remaining mixture into a container and put it on the counter to culture. With the warm weather we had, it cultured the following day! (how do you know? you taste it to figure if it's tangy.)

Step 2

2/3 cup water
2 tbsp agar powder

I simmered these together on low heat until the agar dissolved and solidified. Then, I turned off the heat, added the almond mixture, and whisked. I then poured the mixture into a container lined with cheesecloth and placed it in the fridge for a few hours.

Step 3

water
salt

The cheese is ready and solid! I cut it into four pieces and placed them in a different container, pouring salt water on top. I'm told it will be wonderful and improve as time goes by.

Oh, and just for fun - here's what we had for dinner: fresh sourdough with hummus and mature ful, green ful lightly steamed with lemon juice and za'atar, caprese with vegan mozzarella from Miyoko's Kitchen, and a cucumber-dill salad. It was atrociously hot and this is all we could manage. The only thing here that might not be obvious is the ful topping on the hummus, but all there was to it was opening a can and sauteeing it a bit with sliced onion and some baharat.

UPDATE: The cheese came out wonderful!

Collard Pesto and Caprese

To your left is a nice, summery Italian meal: pasta with a Pesto of Hidden Value and magical caprese. All of this is vegan, with a helpful hand from Miyoko's Kitchen!

First, the clandestine pesto. I added an entire giant bunch of raw collard greens to the classic recipe, to which it adds some intense green color and a bit of flavor. It's the newest addition to my old bag of tricks--I try to add leafy greens to everything I make, partly because of their fabulous calcium content--and pesto is the ideal delivery vehicle for it.

To make this marvel, you'll need:

1 bunch collard greens
4 large garlic cloves
3 tbsp pine nuts
1 cup basil leaves
olive oil (in a bottle that allows drizzling)
salt
a dollop of Miyoko's Kitchen Double Cream Chive

Cut collard greens into ribbons and place in food processor. Process until very thinly chopped. Add garlic, pine nuts, and basil, and continue processing; slowly drizzle olive oil from the top as you're processing everything else until it reaches a consistency you like. Add a few small chunks of Miyoko's Kitchen cheese, if you like, and continue processing until more or less homogenous. Mix with pasta and serve.

Second, the caprese: this salad was one of the grand loves of my pre-vegan life, and today a marvelous thing happened: I received my shipment of Miyoko's buffalo-style vegan mozarella. We had a giant heirloom tomato lying about, so I sliced it, placed a piece of mozarella on each slice, and decorated each with a basil leaf.

Now that I've eaten this salad I can happily say that veganism does not entail even a shred of sacrifice, and all my culinary pleasures are well satisfied without cruelty. Thank you, Miyoko!

Fast Red Tofu Uncheese

Another variation on the tofu "uncheese" theme, this time a soft reddish variety, that tastes somewhat like ricotta but with a bit of a punch. This is really good stuff. I made it to take over to our friends Shachar and Amit's house tonight, with some crackers; I had a small container of matbucha, which is basically a Moroccan salad/salsa/dip made of tomatoes, garlic and spices cooked together for a long time, sort of like jam. If you like, you can make your own matbucha, but if you don't have any and don't want to bother, you can try doing this with roasted peppers or with canned roasted tomatoes.

1 block of tofu
2 tbsps matbucha; or 2 roasted peppers, cut into pieces; or 2 tbsps canned roasted tomatoes (the Glen Muir variety I remember from the Bay Area is pretty good)
1 handful fresh parsley
2 small chili peppers
Optional: paprika; basil; black pepper.

Place in food processor; blend until smooth. Taste and season as desired.

Dill Tofu "Uncheese"

One of my favorite places to eat when I just moved to Tel Aviv was Taste of Life, run by the Hebrew Israelites. This is a fascinating community of folks of African ancestry who live mostly in Dimona, a town more toward the south, and who abide by vegan nutrition principles as part of their spiritual practices. It's a tiny place, but one that was offering tofu cheeses and patties long before these creative dairy and meat alternatives were popular in Tel Aviv. While the Hebrew Israelites refrain from meat and dairy for spiritual reasons, it is well known today that dairy allergies are quite common among folks of African ancestry, so there may be very good health reasons for their abstinence, too.

My favorite dish there was their tofu "uncheese" with dill, and I would buy small containers of it and snack on them on my way home... nothing would be left by the time I arrived to my fridge.

I've just managed to recreate the recipe, and here is my version, for your enjoyment.

200 gr soft tofu
4-5 tbsp fresh dill (big heaping fistful of chopped herb)
5 garlic cloves (don't be shy with the garlic on this one)
juice from 1 lemon
pinch of salt and black peppper

Place dill and garlic in food processor, pour lemon juice in, and chop up; add tofu, cut into cubes, then process again until smooth or a bit chunky. Add salt and pepper to taste.