Cheesecake Factory, Eat Your Heart Out!!!

Wow. It's been a long time. My absence was a byproduct of many different factors, but mainly just being busy and having a slight bout of food aversion. Thus I had nothing to update about and really no time. But recently, really just in the past weekend, I exploded with some tasty dishes.

So, I've had this package of tempeh in my fridge for like years now. Well, not really, or I might be dead right now. But, if you don't know what tempeh is, it's like a vegan's analogue of red meat. It's made by fermenting soy beans which allows it to have more meaty texture and retains more protein, vitamins, and fibre. Anyway, I decided that I have been craving barbeque really badly. So, I made my old family's bbq sauce recipe. Then I pan seared the tempeh, poured the bbq sauce on top and roasted it in the oven. What is the perfect accoutrement to bbq besides baked beans? Fries!! So, I made some chipotle garlic sweet potato fries. I'm telling you, I've had vegan bbq once before and it wasn't as satisfying as this meal was. It was also only the second time I've ever had tempeh. I think I might like it better than seitan. But, just in all reality, I don't like vegan meat analogues all that well. I prefer trying to get my protein through other sources than through 'fakes'!

My main goal when cooking vegan is to really make something so ubiquitously iconically omni into something equally delicious as a vegan meal. I've already mastered the Tres Leches cake, which obviously by pure translation of its name has three different milks in a egg-based yellow cake. I thought that was my pinnacle of omni-vegan transformation, but I think I one-uped it with my vegan cheesecake. I've tried several versions and attempts at a vegan cheesecake. But, sad to say, I've failed at all of them; however, my raw vegan mango cheezecake was delicious, but obviously wasn't a reputable "knock-off" of the real thing. So, instead of using cashews as the main ingredient, I splurged and used Toffuti cream cheese. In order to make the cheesecake even better, I decided to make a couple of sauces. I made a fresh blueberry pomegranate sauce as well as a caramel sauce. I tired to be as authentic and take as much care for this cheesecake as possible---I even used a bain marie. I went all out in order to make this cheesecake perfect. Thank God this was made during the summer because not only was it extremely time-intensive, but it also cost a small fortune. For both sauces and the cheesecake itself, it probably cost around 35 dollars. Now, if you think about what a cheesecake costs at the Cheesecake factory, it's pretty comparable.

I would say that this was a better cheesecake that even what my grandmother made. And that was her signature dessert that I made with her every time I saw her. This was a perfect substitute and finally squashed my three-year-long wait for a perfect vegan cheesecake that doesn't taste any different. I even had a friend that ate it up so quickly, I don't even know where it went! I even had a picky eater say it tasted good. Hallelujah, right?! Hah.  So, overall I think that this was a major success!!

Furthermore, over the weekend I continued my quest to revitalize iconic omni dishes with veganism. So, for breakfast I made biscuits and gravy. My gravy was a sausage gravy even. I found some vegan biscuits after hopping from one grocery store to another. I baked them off like you would any other time. I then sauteed my vegan sausage and then simply made a roux with unbleached flour and soy milk. I added a ton of pepper. And boom! It tasted just like I remembered when I was a kid. Weird thing though, I always poured honey on top of my biscuits and gravy when I was younger. Vegans obviously don't eat honey, and my agave nectar is blueberry flavored. So, I didn't really have the most nostalgic flashback, but it was pretty close.

Overall, I think that my quest is a continuing success! I'm soo excited to try something new. I don't know what I'm going to try next, but hopefully it turns out great!!

Until next time, these were the dishes that satisfied la lengua de un vegan!! :)