Tummy Tuesday : this cheese is nuts! cookbook review

Tummy Tuesday : this cheese is nuts! cookbook review

Tummy Tuesday : this Cheese is nuts! by Julie Piatt

(I hope you’ll join me for this round of Tummy Tuesday. Add your link at the bottom of the post to this week’s Tummy Tuesday blog hop if you’ve got a food-related post or pic.)

 

this Cheese is nuts! by Julie Piatt


This Cheese is Nuts!: Delicious Vegan Cheese at Home
This book sounded intriguing so I grabbed it.  It said you could make your own vegan cheese from nuts.  I had to try out because I had my doubts about whether it would taste like real cheese.

First off, I love real physical cookbooks and this one is no exception. The photography is superb through out the book and in this book, every recipe is accompanied by a photograph. It’s more of a small coffee table book at 7 3/8in wide x 9 1/8tall rather than one of those big books but it’s lovely. Plus it’ll stay open to the recipe if you lay a flat BookWeight Bar across it.

The recipes look pretty simple and I had my doubts as to whether it would actually taste like cheese but I had to try it. I decided to go with the Botija Olive Rosemary Cheese Spread as I had rosemary growing in my garden.

Julie Piatt is very into conscious eating so her forward reflects that. apparently there are cows that produce A1 beta-casein and cows that produce A2 beta-casein.  American cows produce A1 and Piatt said it’s linked to heart disease, cancer, allergies and digestive problems. The Brahman cow produces A2 which is a lot better for humans.  That difference aside, Piatt said it takes 1,000 gallons of water to produce one galloon of milk. She stated that eating plant-based cheeses will reduce your environmental footprint more than riding your bike, recycling or other actions.

 

So the recipe reads :

1C pine nuts
1t fresh chopped rosemary
3T nutritional yeast
1/2t Celtic sea salt
6 black botija olives

Off I went to Sprouts as they had barrels of stuff and I figured they would have what I needed.  I was right.  They did have nutritional yeast and raw pine nuts.  But raw pine nuts was $21.99 a pound!  Wow! I should have picked a different recipe.  I decided not to do the olives as while I like olives, a lot of times I find it overwhelms a dish. Piatt said these olives these olives were subtler than most olives  but I wanted to see if what I made actually tasted like cheese and not just taste the olives.

I didn’t write down the recipe as I figured I’d remember the quantities of two ingredients.  Big mistake.  Instead of remembering 1C of pine nuts, for some reason, I thought it was 1/4 C — maybe it ws the sticker shock.  I did get 3T of nutritional yeast (I brought a measuring cup and tablespoon and measured the amount into the bag).

I realized my mistake when I got home.  Since I am sans car, it’s not like I can just run back to the store although I did consider it (which is why this is a day late). I decided to just divide the recipe by 1/4. It would tell me if it tasted like cheese or not.  So the measurements I used was 1/4C pine nuts, 1T nutritional yeast, 1/4t rosemary, no salt, no olives,

I roasted the pine nut and threw them in with the yeast and chopped rosemary into my handmixer. There was a slight problem as the amount was so small, it kept jamming up into the bell of my handmixer so I’d have to stop and scrap it back out to keep pulsing it.  (It would be easier with a blender). Pretty soon I got a texture kind of like peanut butter although not all the pine nuts were crushed.

I’m not sure why but mine came out darker than hers. A little concerned, I tasted it.  I couldn’t taste any rosemary but a burst of cheese flavor flooded my taste buds. Very tasty.  It reminded me of the flavor of cheese balls.  In fact, I wish I had crackers as this is the perfect accompaniment.  I ate half and stored half in the refrigerator. The next day, I ate the chilled half.  While it is still cheesy chilled, it definitely tasted more cheesy at room temperature.

She names her recipes after the cheese it tastes like. For example Cashew-Almond Mozzarella contains cashews, almonds, applie cider vinegar, Celtic sea salt, coconout milk, water, and agar-agar flakes but no Mozarella or cow’s milk in sight.  I think it’s very clever how she created cheese from nuts.

Piatt is the co-author of the The Plantpower Way: Whole Food Plant-Based Recipes and Guidance for The Whole Family and The Plantpower Way: Italia: Delicious Vegan Recipes from the Italian Countryside as well as the host of her podcast show For the Life of Me

Roundup of last week’s Tummy Tuesday (6/18/19-6/26/19) :

 

Ladylee Manila Blog's food photos for Seafood and salad
Lady Manila: food photos forSeafood and salad, food photos
Slice of Mexico's photo of Veggie Omelette with a Mexican Touch
Irene: Veggie Omelette with a Mexican Touch, recipe
Cactus Catz' photo
Cactus Catz: Mini Desserts, a cookbook and a youtube demo

 

This week’s Tummy Tuesday (6/26/19-6/17/19):

Note: Here are some quick instructions if you need a little help.

  • Click “Check to accept use/privacy policy (click to read)” for your url to be accepted.
  • When you hit enter, a little pop up box should come up so you can choose which thumbnail to show.
  • Once you choose your image, click done.
  • It will ask to close the window so click ok.

Give it a few minutes to do the script and resize the image and then refresh your window. You should see your link. Be aware if you’ve entered a url in a previous Mister Linkys on anybody’s blog, not just mine, it will probably automatically propagate the fields with your previous entry so remember to change the url if you’re not doing the same post.

 

 

 

4 Replies to “Tummy Tuesday : this cheese is nuts! cookbook review”

  1. Mary,

    It sounds all so interesting but these are recipes I’m inspired to tackle. The expense is one thing and the work another. Cow milk isn’t very friendly on my digestion. I’ve heard that it’s not good for humans but I love it so! The A2 cows (Braham), apparently are raised in the USA but how on earth do you go about finding milk or other dairy products made from this breed? Thanks for sharing.

    1. Well, the recipes vary in the kind of nuts you use. Raw almonds are much cheaper (only $4.99 a pound). I chose pine nuts because it’s a favorite of mine plus the recipe had only a few ingredients. I had no idea pine nuts were so pricey or I’d have picked the almond one.

      Yeah, I’ve heard that about cow’s milk too. I find I have an easier time with yogurt. I didn’t know that braham’s are raised in the USA but I imagine the milk is very pricey. Try checking out the book from the library and looking at the other recipes — if your library doesn’t have it, see if they can borrow it for you through interlibrary loan. The beginning recipes are easy– throw the ingredients in a food processor and whirr everything together until it’s creamed. You’ll be surprised at how cheesy it tastes and it might be easier for your stomach — plus nuts are pretty nutritious themselves.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

%d bloggers like this: