Vegan Gluten-free Dairy-free Cheesecake

Goodbyes are always difficult. It seems the more I do, the worse I get at doing them. You think there'd be an elegance or grace that one would acquire over the years, a finesse to doing this sort of thing but I've found the opposite to be true.

My manager announced that he's going to be leaving to go live down in AR before the end of the year. Not that he's leaving the company, mind you, just will be working remotely. So, there was a happy hour held to see his wife off (who's moving down before him) at a local brewery. She's dairy-free, which gave me the perfect opportunity to go crazy with my dairy-free recipes I've been stocking up, particularly this "cheese"cake one.

It came out great, and I think it was actually better on subsequent days. I would recommend soaking the cashews overnight if possible. Definitely looking forward to making all the suggested variations when I have need of a faux cheesecake again!

Vegan Gluten-free Dairy-free Cheesecake w Coconut Whipped Cream
from Chickpea Magazine, Summer 2013

Cheesecake:
2 cups cashews, soaked 2 hours - overnight, well rinsed
1/2 cup maple syrup
2 Tbs lemon juice
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla
14 oz. can full-fat coconut milk
2 Tbs coconut oil
1 tsp agar powder

Instructions:
1. Blend cashews with maple syrup, lemon juice, vanilla, and salt.
2. In a small saucepan, heat coconut milk and oil until just bubbling.
3. Whisk agar powder into coconut mixture for 1 minute.
4. Add coconut mixture to blender, and blend until velvety smooth, scraping down sides of blender as needed.

Crust:
1 cup walnuts
1/2 cup almonds
1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
10 dates
1/2 tsp vanilla
pinch salt

Instructions:
1. Combine all ingredients in food processor and pulse together until finely chopped and starts to clump.
2. Firmly press mixture into bottom and slighly up side walls of 9" a spring-form pan. Set aside.

Blueberry Swirl:
1 cup blueberries
1 Tbs. lemon juice
1/2 Tbs chia seeds

Instructions:
1. Add all ingredients to small saucepan, heat over medium heat until blueberries burst.
2. Use immersion blender to blend until smooth.  Set aside.

Lemon Coconut Whipped Coconut Cream:
1 can full-fat coconut milk, refrigerated overnight
 2 Tbs lemon juice
1 Tbs maple syrup

Instructions:
1. Turn can of coconut milk upside down, open, and pour off coconut water into separate container to safe for another applications.
2. Scoop out coconut cream into a medium bowl. Combine with lemon juice and maple syrup, and whisk together with hand mixer until creamy.

To compile:
1. Pour cashew cheesecake base into prepared crust. Dot blueberry mixture onto th etop of the cheesecake, and use a knife to swirl the blueberries into the cake.
2. Refridgerate for 4 hours until chilled and firm.
3. Serve with dallop of coconut whipped cream and garnish with fresh blueberries.

Possible alterations:
Toasted Hazlenut Chocolate Chip
- Replace walnuts with toasted hazelnuts in the crust. Omit lemon juice and bluebrry swirl from cheesecake base and add 1/4 cup mini chocolate chips. Cool and top cheesecake with chocolate ganache (1 cup chocolate chips, 2 Tbs coconut milk, 1 Tbs coconut oil, melted together in double boiler). Garnish with chopped hazlenuts.

Peanut Butter with Chocolate Drizzle
- Omit lemon juice and blackbery swirl, add 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter to cashew cheesecake base. Drizzle top with chocolate ganache (recipe above). Garnish with chopped peanuts

Raspberry Lemon
- Add zest of 1 lemon to cheesecake base, omit blueberry swirl. Sprinkle 1/2 cup fresh raspberries over bottom of crust before pouring cheesecake base in. Serve with dollop of whipped cream, fresh raspberries, and sprinkle of finely grated lemon zest.

Zucchini Noodles with Sun-dried Tomato Pesto

This was one of the most delicious things I've made in a while. Raw, vegan, and gluten-free. There's really not much more one could ask for! The original recipe has quite a bit of oil and pine nuts, so I pretty much halved all of that. Ever since starting on this weight-loss competition at my work, I've gotten increasingly conscious about things like this! It's a good life-style change : ) Everything in moderation, even delicious things like olive oil  and pine nuts.

Zucchini Noodles with Sun-dried Tomato Pesto
adapted from Craving Greens
1 large serving (600 calories)

Ingredients:
1 medium zucchini
1/2 cup basil, packed
1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes, packed in oil
2 Tbs oil (from sun-dried tomato jar)
2 Tbs pine nuts
1 Tbs. toasted pine nuts, to garnish
2 Tbs. nutritional yeast
1 clove garlic, minced
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:
1. In a food processor, combine basil, sundried tomatoes, oil, 1/4 cup pine nuts, yeast, and garlic and process until smooth. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
2. Spirilize (or grate or julienne) zucchini into "noodles".
3. Toss zucchini with pesto until well combined. Garnish with pine nuts and eat immediately.

Seedy Tahini Cole Slaw

Summer produce is one of my favorite things. Even better, my company brings in a local, organic farmer's market once a month during the summer months so I don't even have to go out to get nice, fresh produce! They always have a dish created by our cafeteria chef to highlight the produce available at each market with a recipe card you can take. This time it happened to be a cole slaw with vinegar and melon. It was decent, but I thought I could come up with something better. Since they had fresh cabbage for only 1$ a head, I got one and did some experimenting. I really like what I came up with, a combination of this and this recipe plus a couple of my own additions. You can really add whatever you want to this recipe, including thing like chopped kale or watercress or cashews or pineapple. There's a lot of directions cole slaw can go, but this is a nice, seedy, protein-filled base to start off with. It can be eaten straight, as a meal or a side dish, or dumped on top of salad or even pasta. This recipe makes quite a bit, so be prepared to share and experiment with the left-overs.

Seedy Tahini Cole Slaw
adapted from Lunch Box Bunch

Ingredients:
1 small head of cabbage
3-4 carrots, grated or minced
1 cucumber, diced small or julieened
1 cup (8 oz) silken tofu
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup tahini
2 Tbs agave
1 Tbs maple syrup
1.5 Tbs soy sauce (or tamari)
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/3 cup oil (I used olive)
1/4 cup poppy seeds
1/4 cup sesame seeds, toasted
1/4 cup pepitas, roasted
several generous dashes cayenne
salt and pepper (to taste)

Instructions:
1. Remove cabbage stem, thinly slice, and then chop into smaller pieces. Place in a large mixing bowl
2. Add vinegar, tahini, agave, maple syrup, soy sauce, garlic powder, and cayenne to a blender, and blend on low until creamy. Slowly drizzle in oil with blender on low. Add salt and pepper as needed.
3. Combine all ingredients (including seeds) and stir well to combine.
4. Serve fresh or allow to sit overnight and marinate.

Vegan Chocolate-chip Cookies

This is Julia's fall-back recipe for cookies. A classic!

Vegan Chocolate-chip Cookies
adapted from a Unbelievably Delicious Vegan Cocount Cookies

Ingredients:
2 sticks margarine
1/2 bag vegan semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 1/4 cups flour
1 packed cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 t. salt
1 t. baking soda
2 eggs worth egg replacer
1/2 T. water

Instructions:
1. Heat oven to 375 F.
2. Combine flour, salt, and baking soda.
3. In another bowl, cream all sugar and the margarine.
4. Add egg replacer, vanilla extract, and water to sugar mix. Stir
5. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and beat until combined.
6. Make small golf-ball sized dough balls, placed a golf-ball's length away from other dough balls on the cookie sheet.
7. Bake until golden-brown, about 14 minutes.

Vegan Lasagna

While staying with my friend Julia in Seattle last week, I decided to make lasagna. Not only did it have home-made noodles, it was completely vegan! Very exciting. It turned out well, and I'm excited for my future lasagna exploits.


Vegan Lasagna
adapted from All Recipes

Ingredients:
1 jar tomato sauce
6 fresh lasagna noodles
1 package firm tofu
1 package soft tofu
1/2 t salt
1/2 t black pepper
2 T. olive oil
1 package fresh spinach

Instructions:
1. Heat oven to 375 F.
2. Place the olive oil and the spinach into a skillet over medium heat, and stir until all spinach is limp and dark green.
3. Place all tofu, salt, pepper, and spinach into a bowl. Mash tofu with fork, and mix all together until desired consistency (mix less if you like texture in your sudo-ricotta layer, or mix more if you like smooth ricotta like in manicotti)
4. Place a layer of tomato sauce in a 9x13 plan. Then place a layer of three noodles across, then all the tofu mix. Alternate another layer of sauce, noodles, and top with more sauce.
5. Place in oven, and bake for 50 mins.

Vegan Lasagna Noodles

Inspiration for this recipe was needing some vegan lasagna noodles, and not having any! They were pretty simple to make, and I'd like to try and improve on this recipe. They came out a decent texture, too, even though I didn't use semolina flour.



Vegan Lasagna Noodles
slightly adapted from ehow

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. Italian herb mix
1/4 t. garlic powder
3/4 cups warm water

Instructions:
1. Mix dry ingredients
2. Add water to dry ingredients, and stir until as well mixed as possible.
3. Place dough on floured surface and work dough until there is an even texture in the dough and it's all one piece.
4. Cut dough into 6 pieces, and roll each one out so that it's a foot long and three inches wide.

Vegan Pizza

Alas! Another pizza post. But, this one's vegan! So it's different and interesting... right? I wanted to review some vegan products. So, this pizza gave me a chance.


Daiya: This cheeze was very interesting. If you're expecting the taste/texture of mozzarella, you're not going to find it. It has an almost sour taste, and a thick creaminess when it melts. It's not bad, but not my favorite. Worth a try. I can see myself buying this again when I try a month of vegan-ness (next school year!)

Yves pepperoni: I greatly enjoyed this product. I placed it on top of the pizza, and it got nice and crunchy. It has good flavor, and I see myself buying this product in the future.

(in breakfast cereal commercial voice) Part of this complete vegan meal!


Vegan Pizza: vegan cheeze, pepperoni, spinach, and walnuts

Ingredients:
Yves vegan pepperoni
daiya mozzarella style shreds
hy-vee (or any other brand that makes a vegan crust) pizza crust
any vegan pizza sauce
3 T. toasted walnuts
small handful spinach

Instructions:
1. Heat oven according to crust package instructions
2. Use entire bag of cheeze, pepperoni to taste, pizza sauce to taste, and all walnuts and handful of spinach.