Vegan Block Cheese Success!

We've been making a vegan cheese sauce for quite a long time now that we really like, but we have never tried our hand at making something more solid.  So when my SIL pinned this recipe on Pinterest, it looked easy enough to try - so we did!  And it was a success!  Here it is!

Vegan Block Cheese

• 1 Tbsp agar powder (I use Frontier brand)
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1 cup raw cashews
• 1 1/2 Tbsp lemon juice
• 1 Tbsp sesame oil
• 2 Tbsp nutritional yeast
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp onion powder
• 1/4 tsp garlic powder
• anything you'd like to add to flavor the cheese - spices, chopped jalapeños, etc.

Lightly grease a small bowl or whatever container you'd like to shape your cheese in.

Grind cashews to a fine powder using food processor. Add all but the first two ingredients and process until smooth.

Bring agar and water to a boil in saucepan. Continue to boil for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and add mixture from food processor. Mix until smooth and creamy. Pour mixture into greased bowl and allow to cool. Move to fridge and allow to chill.

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The first time I made this, I followed these directions exactly, but used my Vitamix instead of a food processor.  The Vitamix was rather hard to get clean - the cashew mix was very sticky.  So, the next time I made it, instead of adding the cashew mix to the pot, I added the water/agar mix to the vitamin and whizzed it up in there and poured it out into the container.  Both worked fine.  Next time I might try the food processor and see how that goes.  I'm not sure it would get the cashews as fine as the Vitamix, though.





And LOOK!!  It slices AND shreds!!!

We've had this cheese with pizza, quesadillas and grilled cheese - all with great success!  I don't think it melts quite as nicely as Daiya, but the family has all called this the best vegan cheese they've ever had, so I'm happy with that!  I know exactly what goes in it - and it's all good!





More cheese?  Sure, why not!?  It's good for you!!  :)

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Planting garlic!

We had so much garlic leftover from our CSA this year that I decided we should try to stick it in the ground and see if we could grow more!   The kids helped me pull apart the heads of garlic into cloves, being careful not to peel them.  Then we stuck them in a little trench in the garden pointy side up and covered them up and added compost.

Grandpa helped us with this project - he dug the trenches for us and then went to fetch some straw for us to put on top to protect it this winter.

Come spring, we sure hope to see some little garlic scapes poking up!  Grow garlic, grow!

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Not a simple spider!

Now I really am all about living in the country, don't get me wrong.  I don't, however, enjoy certain aspects of it - like snakes and bugs and spiders!  But I get along.  Until this day...

We have this really cool tool that we all love.  I love it because it keeps my distance from any bug or spider that I need to dispose of.  The boys love it because they feel like hunters with a big gun!   It's called a BugZooka.




So, when Michael was cleaning out our coat closet and said he found a spider, I simply told him to grab the BugZooka and get it - which he did.

Two days later, Nicholas picked up the BugZooka and was looking in the capture tube because, well, he just likes bugs and likes to see what was caught.  And when he said, "Mommy, did you know there's a black widow in here?!," I was dearly hoping he was wrong!  But looking through the tube, this is what I saw!

I found some old bug spray in the garage and sprayed it into the tube.  When we were very sure that it was dead, we finally took it out to get a little better look at it.  ICK.  

Now I'm just pretending that there are no others like it anywhere in our vicinity - much less our house!  We will all be pretty careful to shake out our coats and shoes when we get them out of that closet!!

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