I can't honestly say I'm "vegan" anymore. Though I try mightily to resist, I must confess, I eat cheese. Okay. There it is, out in public. I also eat...wait for it...ice cream. Get it? Cheese, milk and cream. Sigh. The Man is soldiering on, and on, and on. I am ashamed. I love animals and I know that milk is made because the mama bovine is just feeding her kid, uh, calf. But she has leftovers. So we get cheese, milk, cream, icecream and like that. But unfortunately, the calf isn't allowed to stay with mama. The baby is good—to some hard-hearted folks—to eat.
I wish I could stop myself, as I have by using almond or soy "milk", and do the "cheese", but it's not the same at all. I don't take milk or "milk" in my tea anymore and I try to survive on "cheese" made with vegetable stuff and sherbet/sorbet only in the iced dessert department, but sometimes, I've just gotta have the real live creamy stuff. I'm trying to stop altogether. I decided I would eat ice cream only on New Year's day—you might note that was yesterday? Hence the attack of conscience today. But it was sea-salted caramel amazing stuff hand-made in Berkeley CA. It was almost the best thing I have ever put in my mouth of the dessert persuasion. But I hope by the next new year I am far more disciplined and restrained.
I did only use smoke flavor rather than [shudder] bacon for my blackeyed peas which I cooked yesterday. I confess. I am a Kentucky girl. We do that on New Year's day. If you don't your life is in the tubes for the entire year—they say. I don't believe that of course. I'm just a slave to tradition and like that.
However, there is something I eat a lot of that is mighty wonderful and not pretend anything: Trader Joe's sells a wonderful thing made out of cocoanut milk and extreme chocolate that is fantastic and eats just like ice cream. Well, not just like but because it is so wonderful you don't MISS ice cream. The iced coconut milk works just fine. And speaking of icey things, they also provide to consumers (get it?) a magnificent mango sherbet. No animal products there!
Anyway, I am trying to stop with the ice cream, in addition to my cheese habit which I should also quit due to excess of fat and calories which I really don't need and am seeing the result of in the slowly creeping-upward numbers on my bathroom scale. I'm still okay, but the trend is dangerous. So cheese of the authentic variety, along with ice cream, must be shown the door—and I don't mean of the refrigerator.
The Kentuckians I know put a big chunk of delicious fatty bacon in there with those beans. Me? No animals were harmed in the making of this New Year's Tradition. I put in a big ol' tablespoon of Mesquite Smoke-flavored water you buy in a bottle! It works, too! And instead of cornbread, which requires an egg because there is no real substitute that works the same, I just made rice and beans with them peas, honey. Tasted just fine. The greens got a dose of that smoky stuff too, as they are traditionally cooked with their own slab of fat back. Sigh. The smoke stuff does the job I must say. I don't NEED fat anything! And if I did, a slug of olive oil would work just fine.
So you see, for me, even though I spent my childhood eating Southern cooking which is basically lard-, egg-, meat- and dairy-based with a big basket of lovely crispy fried chicken (please forgive me, Henny-Penny) always on for Sunday dinner (which is really lunch; what is called dinner by Yankees as in "take me out to" is called supper in the south), I have managed to renounce such abominations for the very most part.
But there is cheese... Can anyone help me with this? Please do comment if you have a magic bullet.