Day 128 - Hold The Phone! Vegan Parmesan Cheese??

Of all the things that I miss eating, cheese ranks number one on my "no-can-eat" list.  And parmesan cheese is at the top of that list. I hadn't come across a vegan/soy version of parmesan cheese in my local supermarket and just assumed that none existed.  However, today, I saw it mentioned on food blog and I immediately went to search it out.  Soy parmesan cheese???  Oh, boy!

The Vegan brand is soy-based and I'm working on finding a mail-order source where I don't have to buy a case.  Also, Parma is a parmesan-like topping made from walnuts and nutritional yeast.  But further research found that I can actually make my own parmesan-like topping out of nuts and nutritional yeast and salt.

I looked at a number of recipes.  Raw unsalted cashews were used most often, but some cooks use a mix of raw cashews and raw almonds.  The most common ratio of yeast to nuts is 1:1, but I have seen a few recipes where the ratio is 1:4.  Add a little salt and whip it up in the blender until it has the consistency of grated parmesan and there it is.  It's best to store it in the fridge, or even in the freezer.  So, I'm going to pick up some raw cashews and give this a try.  Along with this wonderful Vegan Lasagna recipe from FatFree Vegan.