When you’ve just started a non-dairy lifestyle, one of the first challenges is learning how to deal without the ingredients in your favorite recipes. You may be used to adding cream to soups and stews, making cakes and muffins with a splash of extra milk, or adding just a sprinkle of parmesan to your eggs to add a special ingredient that no-one can quite place but everyone loves. If this sounds like your kind of cooking, read on for 3 tips that will help your family and guests enjoy the same foods – they might even like the changes more!
3. Don’t Discount Substitutions, but test them before you use them in large dishes. Some are awful, others are GREAT. We’ve found vegan cheese called Daiya, made of rice milk (and it’s vegan too) that we get at Whole Foods Market-. It is a decent substitute. I’m not saying it tastes great on it’s own, but if you need it to add that little zip to something, you may not notice the difference. But we’ve also tried a parmesan cheese substitution and that stuff is awful! UPDATE: I recently discovered nutritional yeast and this stuff is amazing! It is a flaky powdery type thing, looks a lot like instant mashed potatoes, and tastes kind of like cheddar or parmesan cheese. Sprinkled on pasta, added to a potato, or used to add depth to a dish that “needs something”, this stuff is invaluable to a dairy free cook!
2. Choose Asian Dishes. Planning menus that are by their nature already dairy-free, rather than using substitutions, can be one of the best tools in your non-dairy toolbox. Most Chinese and Japanese meals are dairy free and many are gluten free as well. Most Asians become lactose intolerant as they age* and they just don’t cook with a bunch of cheese and milk. In restaurants you will probably find fried wontons that have cream cheese in them, so don’t eat those. But for the most part, you can eat at a Japanese or Chinese Restaurant without fear of your stomach’s retaliation! That goes for cooking too, of course. Get some rice noodles and make a stir fry with your favorite vegetables. Pick up some eggrolls and heat them in the oven. Pan fry some chicken, add some chopped pineapple and sweet and sour sauce and serve over fried rice. There’s three easy meals for your family to try that are not only dairy free but also gluten free!
1. The greatest dishes you’ll make are the new ones you discover! Your family’s tastebuds get accustomed to the way you cook. They may complain about the way their favorite dishes taste now that you’ve converted to a dairy-free lifestyle. If you can find wonderful dishes that your family isn’t used to yet, you may find they are the newest family favorites. Shoot, they may even stop asking for the old stuff and want your newest creations instead!
References
*Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactose_intolerance