i made some cheez!

Last weekend, I decided to make some firm cheez, from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook, I've seen other bloggers rave about the Colby Cheez, a firm cheez, good for crackers and grilled cheez sandwiches. I gathered all the necessary groceries for the recipe, the only weird one was agar powder. I've never used agar before, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I followed the "Chedda" suggestion, at the bottom of the Colby recipe. The recipe was pretty simple to follow, and didn't take very long. I decided to throw some chopped walnuts in the bottom of the dish, to make the cheez look a bit fancier :) And, it sure looked fancy!

So I brought this cheez to a family party, and served it with some crackers. The flavor was really quite nice and cheezy. The flavor was perfect with crackers, my only complaint was the texture, it wasn't perfect to me, a bit... gelatinous... I'm not sure if this is because I boiled the agar for too long. The directions said cook until completely dissolved, I didn't really see a change in the mixture that would be undissolved/dissolved. Alot of the cheez got eaten (by a bunch of non-vegans for the record). I think I'll attempt another cheez with agar, and see if I like the texture any better.

With the leftover cheez, we decided to make some cheezy-broccoli rice. I made a sauce with some plain almond milk, a splash of bragg's, a squirt of mustard, a lil sriracha and the rest of the cheez, all shredded up. I let the mixture come to a bubble, the cheez melted in completely. Then we added in some chopped frozen broccoli, and leftover white rice from Chinese delivery. This mixture came out GREAT! We definitely preferred the cheez this way :) We served it with some hot sauce glazed tempeh courtesy of The Veganomicon, and some steamed cabbage.