Artisan Vegan Cheese Paperback – Illustrated, August 8, 2012

I've purchased and tried making several vegan cheeses in the past. Most of the purchased ones taste awful. Daiya brand is ok and it melts, but it doesn't have the "bite" that dairy cheeses do. In this book, Miyoko Schinner takes non-dairy cheese making to a whole new level. Most of these cheeses are fermented and I would be hard pressed to tell the difference on some of them. I've tried a cheddar, a meltable mozzarella and a smoked cheddary cheese spread that was supposed to be a chevre, but I let it culture a little too long and it got too tangy, so I improvised from one of her other recipes. (It tastes wonderful!) All come as close to dairy cheeses as any I have tried thus far.If you're looking for some recipes you can whip up in a hurry, most of these, especially the good ones can take up to a week or more to prepare, although once you have a batch of rejuvelac made up and stored in the frig, it goes much more quickly. Very little of that time is spent actually putting things together. Most of it is the waiting for ingredients to soak and culture. Many only require checking every 12 hours or so until you get up to the very end. You'll also learn about some ingredients you may not have heard of before, or may have seen on food labels but didn't know what they do, like carrageenan powder, xanthan gum, tapioca flour, nutritional yeast and agar powder. Several of the recipes include raw cashews and miso paste which aren't always that easy to find. I had to make a few trips to health food stores for the miso. All are available on Amazon although the miso is kind of pricey here.One of the ingredients that is used in some of the cheeses is rejuvelac, which is a fermented liquid made from filtered water and sprouted grain. I made mine from quinoa because that's what I had on hand, although it can be made from wheatberries, rye or even brown rice. With the very warm weather and humidity we've had here this week, the process went very quickly and I now have a big jar of it in the frig for future batches. I had never heard of this stuff before. It tastes kind of like a mild sauerkraut juice and it is used to ferment the ground cashews or other ingredients. It also gives a tang to whatever you put it in which adds to the cheesy flavor.I've only touched the surface on trying the cheeses in this book (I got the Kindle version). I'm looking to try a lot more but have gotten to the point where we need to eat what we have here since they only last in the frig for a couple of weeks. Most can be frozen for up to 4 months. Since many use nuts and oils they aren't exactly low calorie so we can't just scarf down the whole batch in one sitting. (But it's tempting!) And the ones with all the fats are probably the ones that taste most like dairy cheese because of their consistency. But if you want to stick to a vegan diet or are allergic to diary products, these are fine alternatives. I have to admit, I'm having fun learning about making them. Thanks to Miyoko of a very entertaining and useful book!

I Love love love love love this book! I have really good cheese back in my life again.I have many food allergies/intolerances, including dairy, eggs, and soy and that trifecta had me believing that ANY kind of cheese - dairy or non-dairy was gone for good. (Most non-dairy cheese is soy based, and the one brand that wasn't sucked rocks.)After getting my order of KAPPA (not iota) carrageenan powder, adzuki bean miso (this was the toughest thing to find a non-soy alternative for), and agar powder, I went on a cheese making orgy. I already had guar gum and tapioca flour on hand. (I can't use the xanthan gum because it's made from corn, and the guar gum works just fine.)One thing to keep in mind: cheese making is cooking with a calendar rather than a clock for the most part. The fastest recipes I tried were for meltable mozzarella and cream cheese (2-3 days) and the longest were for air-dried cheese-board cheeses - cheddar and parmesan about 9-14 days. The first time takes the longest, since you will need to make rejuvelac and possibly also yogurt, so add an extra 1-3 days onto your cheese plans the first time out!The good news is, these are very simple recipes without much hands on time, mostly aging time, so plan to do this during a week or 2 where you can spend 2 - 20 minutes on it every day or so.I found yogurt-making (specifically almond) to be the most challenging part of the process as I kept getting separated yogurt. I did NOT want to purchase a yogurt maker, and after trying several different methods of keeping the yogurt warm, found that filling a medium sized cooler with 110 degree F water was the best way to get the stable temp needed for culturing.On the upside, the separated yogurt worked just fine when I shook it before I used it in all of the recipes, so none of my "flops" went to waste. Also checking out the author's site, I learned that Almond yogurt is the hardest one to get right and it will ALWAYS come out a bit runny.During my cheese making orgy, I made:yogurt, cashew and almondCream cheesecheesecake with a gluten-free date crust (AWESOME!)meltable mozzarella,air dried brie,air dried cheddar,air dried parmesan,andalfredo sauce!Every one of these came out A+ flavor-wise and really close texture-wise. I double checked my subjective opinion by feeding them to my non-allergic, meat-eaters and got 2 thumbs up from everyone!Definitely worth the effort and the cost. (The KAPPA carrageenan, adzuki bean miso, agar powder and nuts added up to a pretty chunk of change, but the agar and carrageenan go a LONG way and it will be a couple years before I need more.)The recipes make VERY generous amounts of cheese, so plan to freeze some or split it with a non-dairy, cheese-making buddy. The only cheese I've had to make more of is the meltable mozzarella, which we are on our 4th batch of.Doing my happy cheese dance! :)