rants & recipes

I was a bit surprised, a couple of days ago, to see a few flavors of Sheese at my local Whole Foods. Although I'm pretty much over dairy cheese, I decided to buy a block since we'd never tried it and it"s nice to "support" stores' carrying of vegan products.

So I picked out the medium cheddar. It was $6.49 / 8 ounces. Quite pricy, but cheaper than the $9+ I seen it priced at previously.

 

(And yes, it does re-seal fairly well. The label was a little worse-for-wear, here, from already being opened.)

I'd read reviews of Sheese a few years ago, about how great it was - good enough, in fact, to have, sliced, with crackers, wine and cheese, etc. So I was quite surprised to taste this only to find it tasted AWFUL. It started out with a rather sharp, Cheddar flavor but ended with some weird flowery, vanilla, almost sweet after-taste. I was shocked.

So, then the question became - what the heck do I do with this stuff? And the hope was that, once melted, it may be edible. Thanks to maryam for suggesting biscuits (and confirming that, yes, this was not very good raw). I was willing to waste a little flour on something that might have to be tossed.

Being a little perturbed from seeing the Facebook fan page for Cheddar Biscuits from Red Boiled-Alive-Lobster, I decided I'd give a copy-cat recipe a try.

Shredded Sheese:

Compared to Follow Your Heart, Sheese is very hard, very dry and almost difficult to shred. It was a bit crumbly.

However, in these biscuits, it was great! No hint of that funny after-taste, not even after the biscuits had cooled off some (I fully expected the after-taste to return.) My biscuits spread a little more than I would have liked. But that's ok, I have enough Sheese to try another recipe or adjust this one!

Recipe Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups Bisquick (300 grams - and yes, it really is vegan. Not even any questionable 'mono - and diglycerides')
• 1/8 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp nutritional yeast (optional)
• 1 tbsp Better than Milk powder
• 1 heaping cup of Medium Cheddar Sheese, shredded
• 2 tbsp Earth Balance, melted
• 3/4 cup water
• 1 tsp parsley flakes
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 cup Earth Balance, melted

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Mix together 1st 4 dry ingredients.
3. Fold in cheese.
4. In another bowl, combine last 3 ingredients to brush over biscuits.
5. Add 2 tbsp melted Earth Balance and water to Bisquick mix. Stir until well combined.
6. Drop about 1/4 cup's worth per biscuit onto a cookie sheet. I made 10 biscuits.
7. Brush biscuits with Earth Balance/garlic/parsley mix.
8. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown on top.