So what do you call cheese that doesn’t belong to you? Nacho Cheese! Cue the laugh track, please…

Vegan Nachos

Let’s talk about vegan cheese for a moment. Raise your hand if you know someone who says that they would be vegan except that they love cheese. Keep your hands raised if you’ve also wanted to give them a biting response that you’d go back to eating cheese, but you actually prefer to avoid the mistreatment of cows in the dairy industry… ahhh, but we’re a polite society. The fact is that even as a vegan, I have to admit that vegan cheeses, just like the early days of soy ice cream, haven’t always been very good. From hard, un-melting, styrofoam-like blocks to off-tasting liquidy messes, our veganism has been mistreated. Sure, there were always cashew creams with plenty of nutritional yeast, but it still wasn’t the cheese we remember as kids… not even close. Well, that’s changed a bit. What’s amazing to me is the variety of choices for vegan cheese now. From Follow Your Heart to Teese to Cheezly to Daiya (the newest kid on the vegan block and 2009 VegNews winner), vegans are not lacking for some pretty good choices for vegan cheese. Those are just some of the choices. There are others as well.

Long a fan of Follow Your Heart’s Mozzarella, we’ve been wanting to try something different. So we were at the Rancho Mirage Clark’s Nutrition (where they also have a great vegan cafe called Nature’s Express), and we saw three varieties of Teese on the shelf. So we seized the day… and the Teese. One of the flavors was Nacho Cheese, so this is my homage to vegan nachos. To tell you the truth, this is a super-simple version of nachos.

Ingredients:

• Tortilla Chips (I used an assortment of blue and yellow, but use what you want)
• ½ block of Teese (I used the nacho cheese style, but anything will be good)
• special bean mixture*
• guacamole
• pico de gallo or other very chunky salsa type topping
• chipotle cashew cream*

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees (that seems to be a magical number for melting vegan cheeses… 375 works fine, but 400 seems to work so much better. Take an oven safe platter or large plate (it should not be a bowl). If you don’t have anything like a serving plate that’s oven safe, then a sheet pan will do. Layer the chips on the bottom (you can have a few on top of each other, but you don’t want to have a five chips stacked up… that would totally blow the toppings to chips ratio (and it’s totally about the toppings to chips… too many toppings makes soggy nachos… too little toppings means you’re basically eating chips only.

Break up the Teese (or whatever vegan cheese you’re using). If it’s solid, you can shred it, but if it’s like the nacho cheese style Teese, then, it’s going to be pretty soft, so it’s all about breaking pieces into small bits to spread around the chips. Not all chips need to have cheese because there will be other toppings, but it’s up to personal taste.

Bake in the oven till cheese is melted and bubbly. Watch out! You don’t want burnt chips. Remove briefly and spread out the bean mixture. Put it back in the oven and bake for another 3-5 minutes till heated through.

Remove from oven. Top with guacamole, pico de gallo, chipotle cashew cream, and cilantro if you like. Serve immediately.

Variations:

The toppings are all up to you. If you don’t have a special bean mixture, then that’s fine. The essential thing is the vegan cheese… and the guacamole… and the salsa… okay, I like to have all these things, but you don’t have to!

*Bonus Recipes! For effort of reading one blog entry, you get two additional recipes!

Chipotle Cashew Cream

This recipe is totally based on Seitan’s Cashew Cream recipe on her Conscious Cooking blog.

Ingredients:

• Makes about 1 Cup
• ½ cup raw cashews
• ¼ cup water or almond/rice/soy milk (preferably unsweetened)
• 1 canned chipotle pepper (not the whole can… just one pepper or two if you like)
• 1-2 Tbsp nutritional yeast
• 1 tsp agave nectar (omit if you’re using rice milk)
• 2 Tbsp lime juice
• ¼ tsp salt (or to taste)
• ¼ tsp black pepper

Directions:

In a blender, pulse chop the nuts until they resemble a coarse meal. Add water (or the milk if you’re using it), chipotle, yeast, agave, lime juice, salt, and pepper (I guess I could’ve just typed that you should add the rest of the ingredients)… blend on puree setting (or a higher setting) for 3 minutes or so until the consistency is very creamy and smooth. Add more liquid if you want it more liquidy. Season to taste. Serve with nachos or other southwesterny foods. Great with enchiladas and tacos.

Variations:

Add more chipotle if you like it really spicy… more lemon if you like it sour… more salt if you like it saltier… it’s up to you.

Spicy Bean Mixture

Ingredients:

• 1 can of black beans, black-eyed peas, pintos, or other bean rinsed and drained (a chili bean mixture works well)
• 1 segment of the Mexican Chipotle Field Roast, broken into 4 pieces or so.
• juice from ¼ lemon or ½ lime (or to taste)
• salt to taste

Directions:

In a food processor (I use my Cuisinart Mini Prep for this), chop the Field Roast until it’s in many small granules. In a small bowl, add the beans, the Field Roast mixture, juice of lemon or lime, and about ¼ teaspoon of salt to start with. Mix well. Taste for seasonings. Use to top nachos or fill enchiladas or tacos.

Variations:

The sour and salty flavors are to taste. You can vary the beans easily too. Feel free to add corn or other small veggies as well.