Three Vegan Cheeses

"Are you a..um...healthy vegan?"

I was recently asked this question by my surgeon during my initial appointment with her.
It is a good question. Fortunately, I could answer "Yes! I am a whole foods vegan." However, I know that just because one is vegan doesn't mean one eats healthily. I mean, Oreo cookies are vegan ( and no, I don't eat them)!  It did get me to thinking though so hang on tight, here we go...

Slowly, ever so slowly, I am climbing back into blogging. It has been a challenging past few months. I have posted some of the details on my art blog so will not go into them here. I will just say that I am here and I am on the road to healing body and heart. 

I have a bit of downtime on my healing journey and am re-evaluating several aspects of my life. One of those aspects is my eating. I do pretty well in the food department but, there is always room for improvement. I have decided to get a bit radical and cut out nearly all, if not all, processed or packaged food. Funny how that is a radical act these days, not so in the past when a household produced and made nearly all of their food.
So, what does cutting out package/process foods look like? It sounds so simple, just don't buy it! I suspect it will be more difficult than it sounds. I have to admit, I don't really have too far to go so it will not be a huge leap for me but, that last little bit might be challenging. The only processed food I currently eat is a handful of condiments, store bought tofu, organic brown rice cakes and rice noodles, and the occasional bit of chocolate.
I keep organic canned beans on hand for emergency/disaster preparedness. They are occasionally cycled into food prep to keep them up to date. We live in a rugged area on the Northern Oregon Coast and our town is big on being prepared for the inevitability of being cut off. 
I don't have my own garden yet. We currently rent and the yard is landscaped. I do have a few containers of herbs and veggies. I would like to find a way to grow more.
Living in a somewhat isolated area, much of my food is purchased in bulk at a food co-op about an hours drive away or by mail-order. A few things are purchased from our town's natural food store and veggies are purchased in the summer from a farmer's market and CSA.
So, I am going to be blogging about this journey. I am really not sure what it will look like yet but I am sure there will be surprises along the way. The first step will be to take an honest survey on what I currently use and have on hand and what I will need to make myself. That will be in my next post.
In the meantime, I  have three vegan nut cheeses in the process of being made. I am using the Artisan Vegan Cheese cookbook as my guide. I have made some of these before and really loved them. I don't really like the packaged vegan cheeses available in the stores, they don't seem to agree with my digestion. I made a quinoa rejuvelac as a culturing agent. Here are the fermenting cheeses:

Top cheese, sharp cheddar, bottom right, gruyere, bottom left, cashew chevre.

There still are a few steps to make to complete the cheeses once they have fermented but they won't take long. I have made the cheddar and chevre before. This is my first try with the gruyere. All are made with a cashew nut base. I will show the finished cheeses when they are done.
I have a shopping trip planned for Monday so I will need to get that pantry survey done tomorrow. I would be interested in hearing from any of  you who have taken steps, no matter how tiny, toward reducing your processed and packaged food intake. 
To your health!
-Renee

Spring?

©2013 R.L. Delight, Neahkahnie Mist

As much as I would love to share a picture of the meal I am about to discuss, my food photography skills are not that great. Other's do a far better job so I won't attempt it but will post this one of where I live instead. I took this one while painting on the beach a few weeks ago.
It has been a bit of a stressful winter for me and my mate. These times come to all of us. While most of the time we eat very healthfully, occasionally a dose of comfort food is called for. Today was one of these occasions. I have been meaning to try out a new recipe I found for gluten free and vegan Tofu Popcorn Chick'n. The recipe is from a wonderful site I found called The Vedge. Shea's picture of her recipe is far nicer than one I could produce.
This was really easy to make. I pressed the tofu in my tofu press and broke it into chunks. I had to freeze it as I wasn't sure when I would be able to make the recipe. Since I already had the tofu prepared (after thawing)  it was a simple step to whisk up the rest of the ingredients and cook them up. I used Cajun spice seasoning to spice them up a bit and have to say, these were absolutely delicious. I made a batch of oven roasted garlic potato fries and a huge green salad served with a homemade lemon tahini dressing (recipe from the book Becoming Raw). Yum! A welcome break from beans.
The spring weather here on the coast has been cold and a bit stormy with sun breaks in between. We are starting to get spring break vacationers in our little town and there is Japan tsunami debris starting to wash ashore up and down the coast. I am waiting for the weather to settle just a tad before heading out to paint again. While I don't mind getting caught in occasional squalls and hail storms, deliberately heading out into the teeth of a series of hail storms is another thing altogether.
Walking the dog has become interesting too. We have had to run a few times to get undercover.
Go check out The Vedge. Shae has put together a wonderful site complete with great recipes and information for us gluten free vegans!
-Renee