Forum Dairy Free Eating

Nutritional Yeast

is actually a fairly simple ingredient that offers a cheesy vibe to foods like no other dairy-free ingredient. Loaded with B vitamins (including B12), many people love the taste of nutritional yeast sprinkled on like Parmesan. If the flavor seems to strong for your taste buds, don’t cast it aside without trialing it in full blown recipes first. Nutritional yeast can be used in very small amounts to add a delicious savory flavor to many meals and recipes.

Tofu

Sliced smoked tofu mimics mozzarella or provolone on sandwiches or with crackers.  Also, in some American-style recipes I have added cubes (or a mash) of extra-firm tofu, and noticed a cheesy taste and texture.  Not cheese by any means, but the basic tasty vibe.

The recipes are really awesome and would like to try them and ill say my reviews of the recipes that I am going to try.

I can't wait to try Quirky Jo's cream cheese recipe!  This thread has been very helpful to this nearly 40 year old with a new found intolerance.  I am very lucky that I can have A2 milk and really feel for those who cannot have any dairy.  There are so many great options to help these days, but it is so tricky.

A vegan chef gave me a tip, that you can add savoury yeast flakes to imitation cheese to improve the flavour.  With the exception of Tofutti better than cream cheese, which is delicious, I have found imitation cheese to be pretty substandard, so I am also keen to have a go at following the advice on this thread and making some of my own.

Tofutti now do a riicotta substitute.

Also look up the blog "Chocolate Covered Katie". not Thermomix, but a  fantastic vegan blog that I use for my duaghter who is allergic to egg , milk protein and cashews. She has lots of ideas you can incorperate into non-vegan meals

I have also used tofutti as a substitute to cream cheese. It is available at Coles in the fridge.

I am looking for a substitute for ricotta, eg. for spinach and ricotta canelloni. Anyone got any suggestions? (Must be vegetarian, no beans, gluten and dairy free). Thanks.

I can recOmmend Tofutti as a cream cheese alternative if soy is safe for your son?

MIU

I'm so glad my blog has been helpful!  That's great you're son's cooking his own now - that's what I'm aiming for with my kids!! My friend's son has just left home (he's about 18) and he ordered a thermomix from me yesterday, as he used his mum's all the time and loves it, and can't bear to live on his own without one!  I thought that was so cool. 

Glad the links are what you wanted - I'm hoping to put some more dairy free links there, just haven't gotten to it yet... 

I understood that Bootobethin, was just telling you what I had done recenlty so you could understand where I was coming from.  I hope those alternatives by Quirky work well for you.

I somehow missed this post - I have a recipe for cream cheese on my blog, plus lots of other dairy free recipes.

http://quirkycooking.blogspot.com/p/dairy-free-substitutes.html

 I will post my df cream cheese recipe over here too - been meaning to do that!  Hope these help - we really love them

Bootobethin, if you're in Perth, I'm doing a dairy free, gluten free cooking class there in Feb where I'll be making the df cream cheese, plus df pizza toppings and other things...

Thanks Moreta.  I think for now the yoghurt cheese will work ok for us.  I would need to reduce that recipe significanlty to have any hope of getting through the amount it would make. We only use about 100grams a week. And we need to be really careful about freshness due to my intolerance to the natural chemical amines. 

I would soooo love a cow.  unfortunately on a town block its not really going to happen. People keep telling me to get a goat, however I doubt I would like the taste very much.  I can only really make fresh cheeses, anything that takes longer than 2-3 days would probably give me an amine reaction.  I found a cheats version for Mozzarella that has it ready in 48 hours or so, thinking we may try that at some point. its all done in the microwave, but I am certain there must be a way to convert to thermomix.

PS. Sorry for hijacking the thread.

My cheese making guide is "Home cheesemaking" by Neil and Carole Willman. according too this book and I will say there are many books--- Cream cheese is a version of Quarg and to be CREAM you add 200ml of whipping cream to two liters whole milk. The recipe is the same for skim, whole milk or cream added.

I use UHT because this is one cows milk I can get and this recipe will use it where most real cheese cannot use homogenized milk. You need to get the starter from one of several cheese suppliers. You add the starter to the milk. heat to 20 C and let ferment overnight or until curdled. this can be 24 hours. If you can maintain the milk at 20 it is only 12 usually. Then the curd is placed carefully in the muslin or very fine cheese cloth to drain. That is cream cheese or Quarq depending on the butterfat content.

go to www.cheeselinks.com.au to find out lots more. If you have access to either raw milk or non homoginized milk you might find this is a hobby worth following. I only do a little now as I have not been able to source any but goats milk unhomoginized and I find I do not like the taste of goats milk cheese. I was making it and giving it all away. I still do a little with cheeses that can use UHT milk. I make cream cheese the most.

Happy to correspond about cheese.

Would love to know more thanks Moreta, the A2 milk does come in UHT, but not easy for us to get locally. Depending on the heat it is not that hard to do in the thermomix, if it goes high enough.  I was curious as to why yoghurt contains Amines and all the recipes I found for Cream cheese were made from yoghurt, but obvoiusly there is another way.

From a cheese makers view there is a significant difference between cream cheese and yogurt cheese. But I agree they can be used for similar dishes. Usually the yogurt cheese is more sharp to taste.  But cream cheese is very simple to make. Probably easier than yogurt. Can you get the A2 milk as UHT? Cream cheese milk must be heated before starting so using UHT is the ideal then you do not need to do the pre heat step. Agantham81 I would be happy to pass on more information if you are interested.

I have been looking at making cream cheese myself, my kids cant tolerate A1 milk protien but do ok with A2. From what I can see it is basically just drained yoghurt.

Perhaps you could try draining some Soy yoghurt and see if you get something close. 

Basically all the recipes I have seen say to place yoghurt into a clean teatowl and hang over a container overnight.  Use a spatula to scrape off the cream cheese.

You can also use the whey in cooking etc.  I made lovely cake with my leftover whey the other day from cheats ricotta.

Hope that helps a bit.

You indicate he is tolerant of soy. Tofu is soy cheese and easy to make at home also. There are lots of recipes online for making it. I hope this helps. And to the comment on goats cheese. it will not be a combination of cow and goat milk.

What about goats milk cheese? Not entirely sure if it is made with just goats milk or a combination of cows milk.

My son is soy, dairy and wheat free and we recently did a food sensitvity test on him and it revealed that he could have goats milk. Must say he does not have severe allergies to these foods, but has Autism and we have found ny keeping those foods out of his diet he has come leaps and bounds.

Would love the hear if anyone knows of a substitute as we are dairy and soy free, so I have been without cheese now for about 2 years and yearning for it