Daiya goodness
April 3, 2010 | 11 Comments »
After hearing all about Daiya Cheese being sold in all Whole Foods stores I bugged Juan to take me after he got off work yesterday. Of course that meant an hour long trip which isn’t so bad, but a part of me wondered if it was all an April Fool’s joke. If it was that would have been a good one. Anyway, the first thing I did when I arrived at the store was go straight for the vegan cheese. There it was. In that beautiful white and green bag. I stood there staring at it for a moment. I’m not kidding. I really did. Then I realized there were only a few packages of the mozzarella flavored cheese left so I quickly grabbed a few. It wasn’t an April Fool’s joke. It was real. Oh so real.
Since it was such a nice day I thought it would be cool to go outside and grill my pizza. So I rolled out some whole wheat dough, brushed it with a little olive oil and grilled it on both sides. After I flipped it over I topped it off with a delicious pizza sauce, baby spinach and LOTS of Daiya Cheese. After the cheese melted I took it off the grill and sprinkled some oregano and crushed red pepper on top. I sliced it up and ate it… ALL.
The first thing I noticed about this stuff was that it didn’t smell funky. One thing that has turned me off vegan cheese is the smell. I know that real cheese smells bad too, but I was never a fan of real cheese either. Well, except for mozzarella which doesn’t really smell like anything. But most of the vegan mozzarella cheeses I have tried smelled very bad. Not Daiya. It smelled perfectly fine. The texture was also very similar to the real thing. It wasn’t wet, soggy or waxy. It was exactly like cheese, man! The taste? Oh my God! I was in heaven. It was so melty and gooey and just flat out delicious. My only issue is that it took THIS long to be able to enjoy this stuff. I was totally missing out all this time.
Juan tried a bite and said it was great, but claims he can tell it wasn’t real cheese. He said and I quote “I can taste the soy. Not much of it. Just a little.” Really? Funny. Because it’s SOY FREE! Yeah, that’s right. You heard me. Soy free. One day this man will open his mind and join me on this journey. Until then this cheese is mine. ALL MINE!
I’ll have to keep my eye out for that cheese. My friends and I do a cheese and cracker night every so offen and we are willing to try different cheeses. BUT blue cheese eww..