back to basics - vegan sour cream

A few days ago I read a comment on another blog that vegan sour cream was hard to locate for the author. Whether you have easy access to vegan sour cream or not, this recipe, another one that didn't make it into my cookbook, Everyday Vegan Eats, is the perfect vegan sour cream recipe for any number of reasons: lack of availability or a need-to-know the ingredients in your condiment.

I did a lot of research into what makes dairy cream turn into dairy sour cream and I am here to share the delicious news.

Dairy sour cream is made by culturing cream. Dairy yogurt is made by culturing milk. The difference between cream and milk is the fat content. Cream is much higher in fat and therefore, dairy sour cream is higher in fat. Milk is lower in fat and therefore yogurt is lower in fat. 

It stands to reason that the difference between sour cream and yogurt is the fat content. This is the key to making homemade vegan sour cream taste delicious! Stirring vegan butter (homemade or store-bought) into homemade vegan yogurt adds much needed richness to the yogurt, which is easily made at home, and thus results in vegan sour cream. Add a little more tang to the yogurt and behold: homemade vegan sour cream. 

The tang is the next challenge. Yogurt has some of its own tang, but to make sour cream we need to add just a tad more. Most vegan sour cream recipes use lemon juice to achieve that tang, but adding just lemon juice is not enough - another dimension is needed since lemon juice alone leaves the typical homemade vegan sour cream flat.

This is where lime juice is useful. Lime juice is tangy, but since it is slightly different from lemon juice, it layers the tangy goodness, and thus offers another needed dimension of flavor without adding any unusual acid, such as vinegar.

You must use homemade vegan yogurt for this (link to yogurt making steps and recipe). All store-bought yogurt tested in this recipe did not taste good. In fact, your own homemade yogurt cultured with your own homemade yogurt is the very best! The only exception might be, which I haven't tried, yet, is Whole Soy, which has been off the market for a while, but is now back on the shelves.

Make sure that you drain your yogurt for four hours before making the sour cream. Use cheesecloth layered 8 times or a nut milk bag. Set the yogurt in the cheesecloth, set the cheesecloth in a strainer and set the strainer over a bowl. 

Now you can make your own creamy, dreamy, tangy vegan sour cream at home, in a few easy steps.

STEP 1: ASSEMBLE INGREDIENTS

INGREDIENTS: VEGAN YOGURT, VEGAN BUTTER, SILKEN TOFU, LEMON AND LIME JUICE, SALT

STEP 2: BLEND ALL THE INGREDIENTS AND CHILL TO THICKEN

VEGAN SOUR CREAM PRINTER-FRIENDLY RECIPE

Speaking of Everyday Vegan Eats, 

Vegan Crunk of Cookin' Crunk, reviewed Everyday Vegan Eats and I deeply appreciate it. She made this Creamy Macaroni Salad from EVE. Thank you, Bianca!

The Vegan Cookbook Aficionado by Maggie did a bang up job of reviewing the book, complete with gorgeous photos, such as this one of the Deli Reuben:

Photo by Maggie Muggins of Vegan Cookbook Aficionado

And in case you have't seen the recipe for Baked Macaroni and Cheese, Chic Vegan has posted it:

From around the web, a few other bloggers have taken precious time and energy to review Everyday Vegan Eats, such as another one of my fabulous testers, Claire of Great Vegan Expectations, who has this great photo of Flaky Buttermilk Herb Biscuits.  Thank you, Claire!

And VegBlogger, who reviewed the book and made my kids' favorite dish: Tater Tot Casserole. Thank you for your review and kind words!

back to basics - homemade soy yogurt

Everyday Vegan Eats has been out for about a week now and I hope you have seen the recipes from the cookbook floating around the web. Don't forget to enter the giveaways for the book on Tami Noyes' site and Robin Robertson's site before they end today.

Since the book is hopefully in a few hands by now, I'd like to post a few recipes that didn't get into the book. These recipes are important in the sense that having the ability to make them at home is not just beneficial economically, but also gives us the chance to make these basic recipes ourselves, controlling the quality as well as the ingredients.

I speak of dairy substitutes: soy yogurt, vegan sour cream and vegan cream cheese.

While developing recipes for EVE, I realized how important it is to be able to make these basics ourselves, in case they are hard to attain or, just simply, are more desirable as homemade products.

I did a lot of research regarding the dairy equivalents of yogurt, sour cream and cream cheese and had a few epiphanies. From these revelations I realized that I could make a really excellent vegan sour cream and vegan cream cheese using vegan yogurt. The only catch is that homemade yogurt is the best.

There are a few commercial vegan yogurts on the market, but the only one I would recommend is the Whole Soy brand, in terms of texture and flavor. Since Whole Soy has just returned to the market, I haven't had the chance to test the sour cream and cream cheese recipes using Whole Soy yogurt, but I did have the chance to try my recipes using the other brands on the market, unfortunately, with dismal results.

Another issue regarding store-bought yogurt, beside flavor and texture, is the difficulty in finding a brand of plain vegan yogurt that is unsweetened. That is the best kind to use in savory dishes and since good brands are few and far between, homemade is your best bet.

Conclusively, the best vegan yogurt is one you make yourself. The good news is that it is easy! All you need is soy milk with sugar content of 6 grams (this is the optimal sugar content to help feed the live cultures) and a small container of plain yogurt from the store. Any brand will do as long as it contains live cultures: almond, coconut or soy, it matters not.

After you make your first batch of yogurt you will make any subsequent homemade yogurt using your own homemade yogurt to start a new batch. In addition, yogurt you make using your own yogurt will get better and better with every batch!

Let's get started!

You will need:

• 1 quart soy milk with 6 grams of sugar at least
• large pot
• thermometer - I use an instant read thermometer
• fine-mesh strainer
• store-bought plain yogurt with live cultures (you will use 1/4 cup)
• bowl with plastic wrap
• warm place to incubate yogurt, such as dehydrator
• cheesecloth or nut milk bag

STEP 1 - HEAT MILK

Transfer your milk to a large pot. Bring the milk to a boil over medium heat. Boil the milk for two minutes and remove from the heat.

STEP 2 - COOL MILK

Cool the milk to about 110-degrees F, but no more than 112-degrees or less than 100-degrees. Cooling the milk will take about 15 minutes.

STEP 3 - STRAIN MILK

Strain the cooled milk through a fine-mesh strainer into a bowl. This step will produce a smooth final yogurt, removing any soy milk skin that developed as the milk cooled.

STEP 4 - CULTURE MILK

Whisk in the 1/4-cup yogurt and cover the bowl with a plastic wrap.

STEP 5 - INCUBATE MILK

 Place the bowl in a warm spot, one that will keep the inoculated milk at a steady 110-degrees F for 9 hours. 6 hours. [I found 9 hours made the yogurt too tangy - start checking it at 6 hours and see if you'd like more tang.] A dehydrator or the Instant Pot 7-in-1 (which you can use to prepare it from start to finish0 works beautifully. Check out some other warm spots at the end of the post.

After 6 hours your yogurt will look like this. If you tip the bowl you can see the whey and the curds separate somewhat. You will be able to make thicker yogurt when you begin using your own homemade yogurt for the culture.

STEP 6 - CHILL YOGURT

Transfer the yogurt to a container and cool the yogurt in the refrigerator. The chilling will thicken the yogurt a bit more. Chill for at least a few hours.

STEP 7 - STRAIN YOGURT

When chilled, remove 1/4 cup of the yogurt and set aside to culture your next yogurt. Drain the yogurt for 20 minutes through 8 layers of cheesecloth or a nut milk bag by transferring all of the yogurt to the cheesecloth or nut milk bag. Place the nut bag over a strainer and the strainer over a bowl. 

HOMEMADE SOY YOGURT PRINTER-FRIENDLY RECIPE

There you have it. Homemade soy yogurt. Whisk the yogurt using a whisk before storing in the fridge to use as needed. 

You will need homemade yogurt to make vegan sour cream and vegan cream cheese. Those posts will be coming in the following weeks.

As a gentle reminder, the giveaway for Tamasin Noyes' and Celine Steen's new cookbook, Vegan Finger Foods, will be ending May 29, so make sure you have entered HERE.

Warm Places to Incubate Yogurt

Yogurt incubates best at 110-degrees. If all else fails, get a yogurt maker.

Here are a few ideas for an ideal environment to incubate yogurt:

 ~ A yogurt maker! ~ Dehydrator set to 110-degrees. ~ Oven that maintains a 110-degrees with the aid of a pilot light and oven light. ~ Oven that maintains a 110-degrees with the aid of 2 tea candles. Light 2 new tea candles after 4 hours. ~ Place an electric heating pad set to medium between two bath towels on the counter; place the bowl on the towel and wrap another bath towel over the bowl to make a warm nest. ~ Transfer the yogurt to 2 (1-quart) jars; place jars in 3-inches of hot water in an ice chest; reheat the water as needed.

If any of these warm places are less than 110-degrees, the incubation will take longer, about 1 to 2 hours more. Do not let the yogurt incubate for longer than 10 hours, though; it begins to develop a yeasty flavor.

annual gyros

It has been well over year since I have made Gyros and I can only delay in making them for the family for the sake of the blog for just so long: "Must make something new!" so goes my mantra.

For all the juicy details of what a Gyro is and my fascinating personal look into the Greek restaurants of Chicago-land, head over to last year's post.

This time around, however, I don't want to bore you with details, and instead only temp you with pictures.

I used the Simple Chicken Seitan Recipe, cooked for 4 hours as a roast instead of cutlets, and sliced it thin. 

Yeah. Still totally great! If you haven't gone here, yet, it is time to book the trip. 

Cost Breakdown

seitan: $2

pita: $2

olive oil, lemon, herbs: $1

yogurt, cucumber: $1.50

tomato, onion, lettuce: $1.50

Total to make 5 servings:

$8.00

RECIPE UPDATE: this soup has been tested and revised and will be featured in the upcoming cookbook "Everyday Vegan Eats," by Zsu Dever.

gyro

European

Having lived in Chicago fifteen years ago and having worked in almost a dozen Greek restaurants, I am very familiar with the Gyro. Interestingly, having been back here for over a year now, I've yet to rediscover those familiar Greek  joints - not that I could eat at them anymore, but still, where have they gone?

Gyro is basically a bunch of meat skewered onto a vertical spit and roasted as it turns. The meat is sliced off in pieces, put on a pita with tomatoes, onions and tzaziki sauce. And please do not pronounce it as the orientation-stabilizing device, for it is not. It is not a hero, either.

It is: year-o.   

For the meat I used the Firm Seitan, but I have had delicious luck with using Tender Seitan. The seitan is cooked as a roast, is then sliced thin and marinated in olive oil, garlic, lemon juice, oregano and rosemary. Before you throw it into a pita, saute the pieces until some of it gets a little crisp.

The tzaziki sauce is soy yogurt with shredded and drained cucumbers (so your sauce isn't too thin), garlic, lemon juice, oregano and a little olive oil.

This is so worth making every time! My family loves it and if any of my old Greek bosses could taste it, they'd love it, too.

Cost Breakdown

seitan: $4

pita: $3

olive oil, lemon, herbs: $2

yogurt: $1

tomato, onion: $1.50

Total to make 7 servings:

$11.50 

jerk chickpeas and potatoes

When you hear of food being jerked, it is usually chicken. Please don't jerk the chicken around! Not here! We are kind to chickens and needed something else to jerk. Chickpeas became a natural because of its firm texture and ability to actually get crisp in the oven. Adding a few potatoes to the jerking also became a no-brainer.

You can also add carrots, parsnips, sweet potatoes (I did) or a winter squash (it's that time of year, again) to the jerking pan. If you add any of the less denser veggies ( i.e. sweet potatoes) add them later in the cooking so they don't over cook.

The jerk marinade is made with garlic, jalapenos, allspice, cinnamon, cayenne, brown sugar, vinegar and a few other ingredients. Make it as spicy as you like it, but remember that cooking takes some of the edge off the raw version.

I made a cilantro-yogurt sauce to tame the heat. This really was an easy meal to make and very satisfying to my jerk-tooth.

Add a side of greens and this meal is complete.

Cost Breakdown:

potatoes: $2

chickpeas: $4

onion, garlic, peppers: $2

spices: $1

vinegar, lime, sugar: $1

carrot, sweet potatoes: $2

yogurt, cilantro, parsley: $2

Total to feed a family of 5:

$14.00

JERK CHICKPEAS AND POTATOES PRINTER-FRIENDLY RECIPE

strawberry dip

Dear daughter Kate loves strawberries and she chose to make a dip for some fall fruit.

The dip is really simple, with strawberry preserve, yogurt and Better Than Cream Cheese. Her biggest challenge was cutting the fruit - it kept rolling on her.

We received beautiful pears and apples in our box this past week, so the timing on her dip was great.

Nothing much to cook with this one, but it is on their list of things to make, the Lunch and Snack List.

Cost Breakdown:

apples, pears: $3

dip: $1

Total to make snacks for 3 kids:

$4.00