Vegan cheese grits

Despite growing up in the South, I never ate grits growing up. It was mostly a texture thing. I didn’t like anything mushy like that. Mashed potatoes don’t count.

Once I started making vegan cheese grits I felt stupid for not making them before. They’re so easy, cheap and delicious! So here’s my basic recipe. I use Daiya in these because the flavor is stronger than most of the other vegan cheeses.

Vegan Cheese Grits

Ingredients

5 1/3 cups water or unsweetened non-dairy milk
1 1/3 cups white corn grits
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 cup Daiya mozzarella or cheddar shreds

white corn grits

Bring the water or non-dairy milk to boil. Slowly stir in grits then add salt and pepper. Cook on medium until it starts to thicken. Stir in Daiya. Continue to cook a minute or two more until it’s the thickness you want. Add more salt and pepper to taste. Makes about 6 servings.

cooking vegan cheese grits

These particular vegan cheese grits ended up with sausage gravy on top. Perfect for a Breakfast for Dinner situation.

vegan cheese grits and gravy

Vegan Cheesy Roasted Cauliflower

If you think you hate cauliflower or know someone who thinks they hate cauliflower, this is the way you need to try it. Actually, any vegetable you think you hate, you might like roasted. In this case, the cauliflower is also coated in seasoned nutritional yeast which makes it particularly tasty.

If you’re locked into going grocery shopping once a week or less, cauliflower, like broccoli, is very forgiving and will hang out and chill in your fridge for at least a week if not longer. When you aren’t sure of your plans day-to-day, these vegetables become your best friends.

cauliflower florets

Vegan Cheesy Roasted Cauliflower

Ingredients

1 head cauliflower
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp salt
2 TBS olive oil

Preheat oven to 400F. Spray a baking sheet with oil.

Cut cauliflower into fairly uniform florets about 1 1/2-2″ long and put them in a bowl with room to stir them around. Chop up the leftover stalk and feed it to your dog if she likes that kind of thing. (mine really does)

Stir together dry ingredients in a small bowl.

nutritional yeast seasoning

 

Drizzle olive oil over florets and stir to coat. Sprinkle dry ingredients over cauliflower and stir to coat. Pour out onto prepared baking sheet.

seasoned cauliflower

 

Bake 10 minutes, then stir around and bake another 10 minutes. Test to see if largest pieces can be pierced with a fork. If so, they’re done. If not, give ’em a few more minutes.

vegan cheesy roasted cauliflower

Do you roast vegetables? What’s your favorite?

The Herbivorous Friendship Society vegan supper club

New Year’s Day this year was the very first Herbivorous Friendship Society dinner. What the heck’s that? It’s a secret (well, not anymore) vegan supper club hosted in a home with amazing food by Chef Billy Cole. The motto is “Look fancy, don’t act fancy.” So, we dress up nicely, but will not hesitate to pick up our plates and lick them to get every last drop of goodness. See, Atlanta’s got crazy cool things going on, even for vegans.

So, while I have the bare bones descriptions of each, it doesn’t do justice to how complex and amazing each dish was. At the end, we each got a bag of cookies to take home with this recap of the night’s menu. After that, I’ll just post the dishes as they arrived for your drooling pleasure.

And if you’re counting, yes, there were three desserts and the last one was a “snack.”

vegan supper club menu

my place at the table

beet

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Lazy vegan pizza

vegan pizza

Lazy is probably going to work its way into many of my post titles this month. Since I’ve spent the better part of the last 2 or so years working in a kitchen long hours, cooking when I get home has to be fast and easy.

As I said in an earlier post, Trader Joe’s is great for lazy food. That includes lazy pizza. In the refrigerated section, by the cheese in our location, they’ve got vegan pizza dough balls. Just let it sit at room temperature for about 20 minutes, spread out on a pizza pan, throw on sauce and toppings, bake and eat.

Feeling extra lazy? Why yes, yes I am. Then they also have vegan pizza sauce. Your only challenge is to have some vegan cheese on hand. Which I did this time, some Daiya mozzarella.

And I thought about grabbing some sliced pepperoni from work, but instead tried to be a little less lazy and made the TVP Pepperoni from Hearty Vegan Meals For Monster Appetites. This stuff is so easy to make that it’s lazy. Seasonings, TVP, boiling water, soak, it’s pepperoni! And it’s delicious! One recipe made enough to generously top two 16″ pizzas with a little extra left over. I’ll probably throw it in a pasta sauce.

The best vegan Parmesan

“Being vegan is so expensive!”

We’ve all heard that one, right? And it’s easy to see how people might think that. If you look on the store shelves at straight vegan substitutes, the price differential can be alarming.

Let’s look at Parmesan cheese. Many of us probably grew up with the familiar green shaker container of Parmesan that came out every time you had something in an Italian red sauce for dinner. This stuff is pretty cheap due to subsidies, factory farming etc.

conventional parmesan cheese

Now, if you just grab a straight vegan substitute off the shelf, it’ll be about three times the price of the conventional version. Ouch.

vegan parmesan parma

Yellow Rose Recipes by Joanna VaughtBut guess what? You can make your own vegan Parmesan! If you search online, you’ll find a number of recipes, but Joanna Vaught‘s from Yellow Rose Recipes is my absolute favorite. Unlike some of the other vegan Parmesan recipes, Joanna’s includes walnuts which give you Omega-3 fatty acids.

Speaking of Joanna and Yellow Rose Recipes, keep an eye on her website. If you weren’t lucky enough to get a copy of Yellow Rose Recipes before it went out of print, she’ll be posting all the recipes on her site! The Butternut Squash Lasagna will impress the most skeptical omnivores. Make extra spice mixture in her Cajun Spiced Tofu recipe to keep on hand so you can bust that tofu out even faster. And make “chicken” and waffles with her Crispy Beer-Battered Seitan. Oh man.

Joanna kindly gave me permission to post her Vegan Parmesan recipe here for Vegan Mofo. I always have a shaker in my fridge and have been known to use it on Mexican food.

To save even more money on ingredients, shop in the bulk bins. If you can find broken cashew pieces, those are often cheaper than whole ones.

Vegan Parmesan

vegan parmesan

by Joanna Vaught published in Yellow Rose Recipes

Makes 2 cups, or exactly 1 used 5 oz. nutritional yeast jar full (reduce, reuse, recycle!)

vegan parmesan in shaker jarIngredients

1/2 cup walnuts
1/2 cup raw cashews
1/2 cup brown rice flour (I’ve substituted other flours like whole wheat when I’ve been out. Still works great.)
1/2 cup nutritional yeast
1 TBS garlic powder
2 tsp salt

Combine all ingredients in food processor and process until fine crumbs. Will last up to a month in an airtight container in your fridge.