Omlet and Fake Cheese

I enjoy new food products so I pick them up every once and awhile. Lately, those products have been fake cheese. Below is how I've used them.

Baked Omelet:
This is similar to SusanV's recipe, but baked.
I mixed in spinach to the batter. The inside is stuffed with steamed broccoli and Cheesely.
Cheesely seemed to be a cross between Scheese (which is my favorite for taste, though it does smell like V-Dog) in taste and Follow Your Heart in texture.

Pizza:

You can see the two cheeses here: Scheese (orange) and Cheesely white). Cheesely clearly melts better, but that's never been a requirement in my cheese needs. I know vegan cheese will never have that stringy texture of animal cheese and I am okay with that characteristic. If melty cheese is your thing - spray oil, or garlic oil over the cheese, this will help the process.

Recently I tried Teese. Maybe it's the fact that I am spoiled and have all these options and don't crave cheese, but I wasn't super impressed. It seemed similar to Cheesely and Follow Your Heart. I enjoy the flavor, though it was light. Maybe I should have had more than just a bite. Food Fight will have it soon enough.

I love that there are so many products on the market these days. Back when I first went vegan we had one option and didn't have much of a choice to enjoy it or not - it just existed! How times have changed - here I am 10 year later tasting two different type of UK fake cheeses and two American cheeses (and I don't mean flavor here) that some people don't have access to in even a speciality store!

There hasn't been much cooking lately. The doctor insists I stay off my feet so my back can heal but it's been almost 7 months since the accident and I haven't been able to sit still since. Since I love to eat and cook it's been even more difficult! Good thing I've been able to visit more Portland Restaurants to keep Stumptown Vegans going.

Stay tuned for birthday week in the near future. Three birthdays in our household in a one week span! Lots of cake!

Squash Good Bye Winter, Hello Summer

I enjoy my food simple and these two dishes are so simple but do not lack flavor.

Braised Squash with Wilted Spinach:

Pan fry summer squash in olive oil (I enjoyed using my garlic oil here) with an herb of your choosing. I went with tarragon.
With one bag of spinach, toss with a light basil balsamic vinegrette salad dressing. Spead it across a cookie sheet and broil for a few minutes, toss and continue to broil until it's all warmed, but not cooked all the way through.

Pile the spinach on your plate and place the squash over the bed. Sprinkle with salt and better and welcome summer squash back into your life.

Butternut Squash Fries with Vanilla:

I picked up a fun, new salt - vanilla salt! Where to use it? - sweet fries of course!

Here I chopped up butternut squash into fry-like pieces, tossed with olive oil and baked at 400F for awhile. I became impatient and wanted them before they became crispy fries so I took them out, sprinkled them with a wonderful new vanilla finishing salt. This was a perfect way to celebrate the savory of the squash and the sweetness of the sugars within the squash. I love this salt and will find many more uses for it I am sure.

In the oven now - a chocolate version of my glutten-free almond cookies. They smell heavenly!