I Don't Really Miss Cheese, But Still -

I had a good experience with Little Caesar's Pizza a while ago: They made me an awesome cheeseless Vegetarian Pizza. Their website explains how Little Caesar's recognizes that the number of vegetarians in the United States is increasing and that they wished to accommodate these people by producing pizzas without any animal products. Their site states that ordering a Vegetarian Pizza without cheese would fit the requirements of a strict vegetarian (a.k.a. vegan - that's us!) diet. The same goes for the Crazy Bread: Ask for no cheese or butter on both items, and you should be safe.

So our family ordered from Little Caesar's again this week, and I had high hopes for another delicious pizza. But my dreams were shattered and ground into dust when I opened up the half-cheese, half-no-cheese veggie pizza and saw cheese seeping over the "half" line onto "my" portion of the pizza! Arrrrr! I threw a hissy fit over it - I had been excited all day to get this pizza, and my slices were inedible! My dad had to drive all the way back to the pizza place to get it replaced. The new pizza was quite delicious, though. They tried a little harder the second time: There were more veggies and they were arranged more nicely, the dough wasn't scrawny and misshapen, and it was nice and hot and not cheesy on "my" side of the pizza! The moral of the story? Little Caesar's, take the time to make my pizza right the first time, or I'll just make you re-do it!

You'd think after this experience that the sight of cheese or even vegan cheez would disgust me to no end. But no... Now silly Ruby Red Vegan decides that, even though she doesn't really miss cheese, she is going to dip into the world of vegan cheese substitutes for the first time.



I was going to make a Grilled Cheez Sandwich with tomato, but I forgot to buy tomatoes!

I used Galaxy Vegan American soy slices. I had to fry the sandwich, microwave it, and then toast it to get it to melt this much. It didn't taste exactly like cheese - it didn't really taste like much of anything - but it wasn't bad.







What be this?



It's Mac Daddy from Veganomicon! The Cheezy Sauce is excellent! I'm a big, big fan of nutritional yeast, and the sauce was very noochy. Mmm, mmm. My macaroni was made out of quinoa flour and corn flour. I really liked that part, too! It's weird that the finished concoction didn't taste as yummy as the separated parts, but I have leftovers so I'm hoping it's one of those things that is fantabulous once reheated. But the funny thing is, the Mac Daddy was so much more delicious than real mac 'n' cheese. Then again, I haven't had mac 'n' cheese in years and years: I abandoned it after I had one too many packets of Easy Mac. Gag.

These yummy Pumpkin Spice Muffins from pcrm.org are fat-free and very simple, but are so so so delicious and rich-tasting! I got the idea to make them from one of VeggieGirl's old posts.



An impromtu Vegan BBQ Chik'n Sandwich:





I'm the pancake queen! I can't stop making them - I'm obsessed. I can't control myself: I just wake up and my hands start making pancakes!!! These ones are Banana-Chocolate Chip.



Thanks for all the tahini recipes you guys offered up after my last post! I didn't realize so many others were having a hot love affair with that good ol' sesame seed paste... But I've joined the fun, too!