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Don’t get me wrong.

I love sauce, probably more than most people, and I tend to drench food in sauce.

But I think it’s important not to do that sometimes, to really enjoy the flavor from each ingredient.

Fresh and delicious!

As you know, I’ve been making various types of vegan cheese.

Now I have a few favorites, and I decided to make a plate to showcase them.

I had a special guest the other day, and I thought it was a perfect opportunity to make one for us to enjoy together.

Herbed Feta.

The recipe is from the Vegan Cheese book.

Cheddar.

The link to the recipe is here.

Gorgonzola.

The recipe is from the Vegan Cheese book.

This was the one I was the most excited about!

I’ve made the above three multiple times, but this one was my first time making: Fresh Mozzarella.

The recipe is from the Vegan Cheese book as well.

This was so much fun to make.

The result was wonderful.

It was so creamy and delicious!!

A few fancy things to go with the plate.

This vegan “caviar” is amazing.

It has the taste and the texture that’s very convincing.

Here is the link (Amazon) for more info if interested.

There are really endless ways to enjoy these cheeses.

This was Gorgonzola and fig jam on a cracker.

DELICIOUS!!

I had a lot of cooked broccoli and wanted to use it for my breakfast.

What I ended up with were these omelette fritters.

Love that there are a lot of chunks of broccoli and it’s flavored with Japanese Shiso basil.

I used chickpea flour instead of regular flour, so, the final result was more like “omelette” than typical fritters that tend to be a bit more dense.

My husband and I absolutely loved it.

Next time I will definitely make extra so that I can have them in the freezer.

Broccoli Shiso Omelette Fritters: cooked broccoli, chopped Shiso leaves, chickpea flour, salt, pepper, nutritional yeast, garlic powder, onion powder, sugar, water

It’s always nice that your snack is not only delicious but also healthy and colorful.

I got fresh veggies ready.

And ready to dip!

Cheddar.

Edamame Mint.

Maple Purple Potato.

Yum!

The recipe is from this book.

I always liked Swiss cheese.

So when I found the vegan recipe, I had to try it.

I should say I was actually attracted to the authentic look, with holes!

The holes were optional, but of course I had to make mine just like the one in the book.

An apple corer worked perfectly, just as recommended.

I can’t wait to show you what dishes I created with this beautiful cheese!

Christmas pastry with basil pesto and sun-dried tomato.

The colors are perfect.

Merry Christmas everyone!

I’m not a huge fan of “mock” anything, as “mock” meat tends to stray too far away from whole-food.

But last time I was in Japan I bought this cookbook called “MODOKI (means “mock” in Japanese)”, as the ingredients are still mostly whole-food.

I’ve been interested in this recipe for a while, and finally I decided to give it a try.

Oyster was one of my favorite seafood before I switched to the plant-based diet, so I was pretty excited.

How did I like them?

Well, I absolutely completely LOVED them!!

These are insanely awesome!

They look like oysters, and the taste and texture definitely remind me of those of oysters.

But what’s so great about them is that they are simply DELICIOUS!!

I hardly ever buy cookbooks anymore, but I’m so glad I picked this up the last time I was back in Japan.

Please do not ask for the recipe, as its ownership belongs to the book’s author, Ms. iina. Thank you.

The Zucchini Corn Fritters from my previous blog were one of the most popular dishes.

It was definitely one of my favorites as well, and I decided to try creating them again.

This time, a plant-based version.

I just got this giant zucchini from my mother-in-law.

She said she got it from her neighbor.

I suspect that this came from the lady’s garden and not from a store!

This zucchini was surprisingly firm even in the center and not very seedy.

So I was very happy with that.

By the way, the corn is from the local farmers market, and it’s SO sweet and delicious!

This time I used a mixture of flaxseed meal and water to replace an egg, I used almond meal in place of the hemp seeds (I was simply out of the hemp seeds), and I added scallion instead of basil this time.

As I did the last time, I only used a little amount of flour, enough to help keep the shape of the fritters.

These fritters turned out delicious!!

Just as good as the non-plantbased version.

These fritters do not need any sauce as they are tasty as they are.

But some people may enjoy them with herbed mayo, ketchup, or other sauce of their choice.

I enjoyed mine with this homemade tarragon mayo.

These fritters make a perfect lunch when served with salad and soup.

I recently bought this grater, and this is a life saver!

I used it to grate the zucchini, and it worked wonderfully.

I don’t know why I didn’t buy it sooner.

Another tool that saved me from a possible disaster was this flipper.

A friend gave this to me as he thought this would help me flip Okonomi-yaki like this one, but I’ve been using this for so many things.

It’s a lot of fun to visit a farmers market this time of the year.

I can’t wait to see what I’ll find this weekend!

Can you believe this beautiful Blue Cheese does not contain dairy?!

Who knew you can make vegan cheese this easily?

It was such a fun project for me to work on.

It all started when my husband found this book at a local bookstore.

As you can see, it has blue veins just like the regular blue cheese does.

I wore my brand-new apron I just found during my recent trip with a friend to a vintage-antique store in St. Cloud.

This looked hand-made, and I loved the country look as well as the colors.

If you ever visit St. Cloud in Minnesota, check out this store.

Okay, back to cheese.

This is how it looked after rested for a day.

You may ask if it tastes like blue cheese?

My answer would be “Not exactly”.

But it does taste good as something different.

I’m probably a bit more critical, because my husband says it’s “dead-on”.

I do agree with him that this is definitely a good plant-based alternative.

And it looks pretty similar to the regular blue cheese.

It’s supposed to “age” with time, so I’m interested how the taste changes over time.

These stitches are so pretty.

I wonder if you can do this by hand or by using a sewing machine?!