All you need is No-Moo

I’ve been vegetarian for 38 years and vegan for the last 6 of those. As a vegetarian, my diet consisted of lots of pasta, bread and cheese. Not the most healthy diet. After spending 2 months traveling around India in 2002, and not having pasta, bread, or cheese for that time, I was surprised at how good I felt. I had more energy and didn't feel bloated and sluggish anymore. Frankly, not having those foods for 2 whole months – I just about lost my taste for them, so it was easy to limit my consumption when I got home (I started cooking lots of veggie curries with rice instead!)

A few years later, I learned of the intense cruelty of the dairy and egg industries and stopped eating all animal products almost immediately. I still liked the taste of cheese, but chose not to eat it. 

I hear many vegetarian say, “I could never live without cheese.” I thought that once. But, I think that just saying, “I will go one week without X” is enough to start the process of getting your taste buds used to not having that food item.

Just a few years ago, the non-dairy cheese options were pretty dismal. But now there are several good alternatives on the market. In the U.S., there is Daiya. It is good, and I use the melty version for pizza and lasagna, but it doesn't wow me enough to buy it very often.

Vegusto table at the Bristol VegFest in the U.K.Now that I spend a lot of the time in the U.K., I’ve found a non-dairy cheese that is so good, I’m indulging in foods I haven’t had in years – cheese and pickle sandwiches, cheese and apple slices, and just plain cheese and crackers. All with Vegusto No-Moo (non-dairy) cheese. Made in Switzerland, Vegusto is available by mail order in the U.K. and the EU.

Two flavors of Vegusto No-Moo cheese arrived in the mailI practically bought my weight in Vegusto cheese to bring back home to the States with me. 

Vegusto No-Moo tasting with whole wheat bread and chutney.Since my boyfriend A. is a foodie and a new-ish vegan with a more recent memory of what dairy cheese tastes like, I asked him to provide an assessment of the two different Vegusto flavors we had purchased. Here’s what I got out of him.

The Vegusto No-Moo ‘Golden’ has a slightly grainy consistency and the mild flavor of a caerphillyn or edam. It is best on its own on crackers, and would be overpowered in a sandwich. The Vegusto No-Moo Piquant also has a slightly grainy texture but is more like a parmesan in taste. Both have the richness and ‘mouth feel’ of dairy cheese.

There you have it. So, with Daiya in the U.S. and Vegusto in the U.K. and EU, it’s now possible to have the taste of cheese without the cruelty (or the cholesterol).

Adventures in shoe painting, part 4

This pair of scuffed-up, comfy shoes with bowling-shoe type styling were on their last leg. Even the inside of the shoes was pretty worn, but I knew I could get a few more wearings out of them and wanted them to go out with a bang.

Shoe ad from August, 1971 issue of Seventeen magazine I was again inspired by 1970s shoes (previous projects include clogs, sandals and spectator shoes). 

Using Jacquard Neopaque paints, I mixed my own colors and first painted the section closest to the sole an olive green color, I then painted the next section up hunter green. The topmost section was to be painted red. The above photo shows the first coat of red (when it was still too rust-colored. I later made it more red than orange). As with the yellow in the previous pair of shoes, I found that red colors required more coats to get good coverage.

I didn’t like the combination of olive green next to hunter green, so I added red to my olive green paint to make it more brown and painted a second coat. Here the stitched seams between the 2 top sections is unpainted. I was toying with the idea of painting them purple, but then decided to make them brown. The green and brown sections required two coats, the red need about five.

The finished shoes.

Not wanting to leave well enough alone, I thought about painting some embellishment on the red sections and used paper cut-outs to get an idea how they would look.

Two of my favorite motifs -- a moon and a star? (The red section doesn’t have its final coat in the this and the next few photos)

A faux-buckle?

A groovy flower?

Because the red section seems to elongate my feet, I’ve decided to fill in the toes with brown paint and do a large yellow star on each red section as in the mock-up above. I've been wearing the shoes for the past few weeks and will get around to finishing them this way soon.

Since I am linking this post to Lakota’s Ta-dah! Tuesday, I thought I’d throw in another ‘ta-dah.’

I usually make this quick and easy lasagna (from a recipe on FatFree Vegan Kitchen) with tofu as the recipe states. I was making it the other day and didn’t have tofu, so I substituted a tin of cannellini beans which I put in the food processor with sautéed garlic and some nutritional yeast. If you are avoiding soy for whatever reason, cannellini beans make an equally nutritious but more filling substitute. I made other substitutes based on what I had on hand, in this case, sautéed summer squash instead of mushrooms and Daiya Mozzarella Style Shreds for the top. In the U.K., I'd use Vegusto No-Moo Melty. Both Daiya and Vegusto make non-dairy cheeses that are quite good.

Oh, and for another ta-dah, I made the two potholders in the photo from vintage 1970s fabric.

Check out the clever people on Ta-dah! Tuesday!