damona cheezes

I am obsessed with the Damona cheeses, after friend Ju brought the brie to my birthday and I made my first ever cheese platter. IT WAS AMAZING. After you get used to the faint coconut aftertaste (it's a very coconut-based cheese) it's so gooooood. So brie-like, perfect at room temperature and great with some figs on some gluten-free crackers.

Anyway so I purchased the brie, the mozzarella and the pepperjack because they were onsale this week at the Cruelty Free Shop in Fitzroy. Brie, amazing at room temperature spread on pumpkin sourdough. Highly recommend.

I used the mozzarella in a tomato-based pasta sauce, added to my bowl after all was done. The mozzarella has sun-dried tomatoes through it, and it was melty but added a bit too much of a coconut aftertaste to my pasta. I won't use it again on my pasta, but I am going to give it a go on pizza soon.

Today I made cheese toasties out of the pepperjack. It's not peppery at all, and melted really beautifully into the sourdough. Again with the coconut aftertaste, but I'm looking forward to making a tomato and cheese toastie in the very near future.

Overall, I'm a big fan of the Damona cheeses. The brie remains my favourite, but I'm enjoying the pepperjack a whole lot. I remain mixed on the mozzarella.

Damona cheeses are made in Coburg! What a good, local cheese.

nacho cheese dip

I made a nacho cheese dip for the recent gluten-free cheese picnic. The nacho cheese dip was very tasty, and I made it again on Friday, because I had the genius idea that I was going to put it in pizza pin wheels to take to roller derby on Saturday.

This recipe is super simple, and very versatile. I've modified it a little bit from the original recipe, so I reproduce it below, with pictures! Please note that I have followed the original recipe exactly before, and it works super fine.



nacho cheese dip, originally from schmooed food.

ingredients
one and a half cups of water
one third of a cup of raw cashews
four or five cherry peppers (or pimentos, I found this in the jar section of my IGA)
1 approximate cup of savoury yeast flakes
1 tablespoon cornflour (make sure this is gf!)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
half teaspoon salt
half teaspoon onion powder
half teaspoon garlic powder
lots of cumin, four or five shakes

method
Take the stems off the peppers, but keep the seeds in. This adds a nice bite! You don't need to measure out everything in advance, but with this recipe I like to, to make sure I have everything I'm supposed to have.



Then blend it all together! I like to blend the cashews first, to ensure that they're smooth, before adding the rest all at once.

After blending, dump the whole mixture into a small saucepan and stir constantly over medium heat for about five minutes. I like to use a fork for this, but a wooden spoon would be okay also.



After simmering, it should have thickened a bit. Remove from the heat and leave to cool, and it will thicken a bit more! If you find that it is too thick, then add a bit more water during blending or simmering stages. I, however, wanted it thick more like a spread so that I could use it for:



Vegan toasted cheese sandwiches, and pizza pinwheels! This was my first vegan cheese toasted sandwich attempt, and it was awesome! The cheese went perfectly - so perfectly in fact that I am thinking about making another lot of it this afternoon to keep in the fridge for emergency sandwiches during the week!