and things went downhill from there

Once we decided that we were going to thaw out a couple of the "Beyond Meat" patties we had in the freezer for dinner yesterday (since it looked like it might be our last opportunity to use the grill for some time), I went shopping for buns and other accoutrements. I nabbed a 4-pack of brioche buns, beefsteak tomato and sweet onion for my own burger (atara isn't a fan of much beyond lettuce on her own burgers). As I was heading to the till a niggling bit of curiosity started churning in the back of my head. If this little store carries vegan meat replacements, I wonder if they carry vegan cheese replacements too.

My experiences with vegan cheese in the past have been ... mixed; generally ranging from bad to best forgotten. It had been a few years since my last encounter with it, though, and given how far they have come with meat replacements, I felt it improbable that they'd not made improvements with cheese. I found a small pack of "cheese" slices in a similar format to the Kraft slices, and against my better judgement, I tossed one into the basket with my other groceries.

The first thing I did with the fake cheese was to try an unadulterated slice of it. I set it down next to a slice of processed cheese, and although they were both the same shape and colour, they were easy to tell apart. The fake cheese was like a slice of cheddar rather than processed cheese. It was hard and had clear lines across it from being sliced off of a larger block. In terms of smell - well, it smelled like cheese. If anything, it almost smelled too much like cheese, as if it was trying extra hard.

I tried eating both slices after that. Even ignoring the textural differences, there was no mistaking one for the other. I definitely preferred the flavour of the "real" cheese, but the vegan stuff wasn't bad. If I hadn't known that it was vegan in advance, that probably wouldn't have been my first guess on tasting it. It was mostly something in its aftertaste that just wasn't quite right. It triggered a flavour response that I associate with bitterness, without being overtly bitter. But it was okay - and a far cry better than any of my prior experiences with vegan cheese.

Given its texture, I had reservations about how well it would melt on my burger, but gamely put a slice of regular cheese on atara's burger, and a slice of the vegan one on mine. As I had feared, by the time the processed cheese was nicely moulded to the top of its patty, the fake one still looked pristine. I took the finished burger inside and left mine on the heat for a little longer. After another minute or two, it started to look a bit meltier, but rather than conforming to the shape of the burger, its edges started curving upward. I finally decided that it was done, and I removed it to a plate.

I also flipped the slice of cheese to make it curve downward instead. In spite of looking fairly solid, it was actually very soft when I flipped it, which raised my expectations a bit.



Appearances aside, if somebody had given me this burger and not told me that there was anything special about the cheese, it would not have occurred to me that it was a vegetable product. It was good. I'd simply have assumed that it was a slice of cheddar rather than a slice of processed cheese. Although I have no compelling reason to use this product on future burgers, I would have no hesitation about doing so.

I gave it a second trial this morning by making a grilled "cheese" sandwich for breakfast. Since I knew that it needed a bit of extra effort to melt, I gave it some assistance by making the sandwich over low heat, in a frying pan with a lid. Other than using lower heat and covering the pan, I made the sandwich the same way that I usually do. I melted a bit of butter in the frying pan before adding the sandwich and then added a bit more butter when went to flip the sandwich. Then I just turned it a few more times until both sides were toasted to my satisfaction.

When it was adequately browned, I removed it from the pan and was a bit disappointed to see that the cheese overhanging the edges of the sandwich did not look like it had melted at all. As soon as I took my first bite of the sandwich, though, I discovered that appearances can be deceiving. It was thoroughly melted all through. In fact, this sandwich was better than just passable - this was a perfectly cromulent grilled "cheese" sandwich. If somebody had made this for me without any advance warning, I'd have assumed that they used a different brand of cheese than I was used to, but "vegan" probably would not have been my first guess.

atara took a reluctant bite of the sandwich, and declared that other than not quite having the right mouthfeel, it was not really a bad sandwich. Coming from such a grilled cheese snob, that's pretty high praise.

I bought this cheese out of curiosity, and as an experiment. Neither of us has any (current) health reasons to avoid the real product, but I'm pleased with the outcome of this trial. If I ever developed lactose intolerance or came under my doctor's orders to avoid dairy, I think that I could be content using this product. They've managed to cross the threshold into "pretty good" territory.

Tonight on "Cooking with plonq" ("vegan" chilli edition):

I had not been anticipating the fierce wind and snow when I planned to make chilli today, but I could not have asked for more appropriate weather.

I started off by making a mirepoix (sort of) by coarsely chopping a couple of small yellow onions, two stalks of celery, and one red bell pepper. I tossed that into a pot with some vegetable oil and chopped four cloves of garlic while the veggies sweated a bit.

I let them cook down while I dug out the next couple of ingredients, then scraped the garlic into the pot and let it get to know the other ingredients for a minute or so before I squeezed in the last of our tube of tomato paste, and a teaspoon or so of anchovy paste.

I stirred that for a minute or so to cook the raw flavour off of the tomato paste and then dumped in an unseemly amount of chilli powder, some ground cumin, and about a half-tablespoon of dark cocoa powder. As soon as that was starting to want to stick to the bottom, I reached for the can of tomatoes -- and caught myself just in time.

I'd totally forgotten the "meat".

I fetched the two packages of Impossible ground burger from the fridge and hastily dumped them into the pot along with a splash of more oil. Then I spent the next few minutes stirring it and breaking it up until it was cooked through before I resumed where I'd left off earlier.

Once the "meat" was done, I poured in a large can of chopped, fire-roasted tomatoes, a small tin of chipotle peppers with their sauce, and a large can (drained and rinsed) of red kidney beans. I swished some water into the cans from the tomatoes and peppers and added that but it still seemed a bit dry, so I mixed up about 300ml of vegetable bouillon and stirred that in along with a bit more chilli powder, cumin, and some ground black pepper.

I let everything simmer together for a few minutes before tasting it. Other than adding a few good shakes of hot paprika to give it a bit more punch, I didn't think it needed anything. I'm glad that I didn't add any salt - it got enough from the bouillon.

I think it might have been improved by the addition of a couple of bay leaves, and/or some fine-chopped fresh chilli peppers. But overall, it was good. Paired well with the honey cornbread I made as a side dish.

This evening on "Cooking With Plonq":

When I was out shopping yesterday, I picked up a bag of bok choy at the grocery store. atara saw it in the fridge this morning and said, "What do you have planned for all that bok choy?" It was a reasonable question since we already had bok choy in the fridge when I brought home more.

This evening, I showed her the plan.

I grabbed a ribeye down at the butcher shop yesterday to use a coupon before it expired. It's a rather premium cut of beef to be used in a stir-fry, but we don't spend a lot on meat these days and I decided to splurge for a change.

I sliced it thin and tossed it into a bowl to marinade in some light soy sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil, dry sherry and corn starch. I set that aside and got myself busy chopping the ends off of an unseemly quantity of bok choy and washing it thoroughly.

While that was drying, I minced up two cloves of garlic, the rest of the sweet onion that had been languishing in the fridge, and a medium yellow onion. Finally, I put on a pot of rice to begin cooking.

I set the wok on a second burner and cranked up the flame, swirling some oil in the bottom of the wok until it just started to smoke. I dumped in the marinading steak and tossed it in the oil until it barely lost its pink colour. I quickly transferred the meat to a bowl to rest and dumped in the minced garlic and a good spoonful of pureed ginger.

After a minute, I poured in the onions and stirred them over high heat until they started to turn slightly translucent. I dumped in the bok choy, put a lid on the wok, and turned off the heat under the rice to let it coast to a finish.

When the bok choy had cooked down adequately, I dumped in the meat and its accumulated juices and tossed everything together to distribute the sauce. I finished in the bowl with a shake of toasted sesame seeds.

Was it worth using a fancy cut of meat in a stir-fry? I'd say that it was. We could really tell the difference from the usual quality of stewing beef we normally use for this.

As dinner approaches, we are torn between being too lazy to cook something at home, and too lazy to go out for dinner.

If we do go out for dinner, one of us (not me) insists that it can't be anywhere nice because they have not showered.

I put in a Google search for "trashy local dining" and it came back with interesting, seemly random results. A couple of the places are new to me, and look pretty decent.

In typical Google fashion, though, not one of the places looks trashy.