- I didn't just start making vegan foods,
I started making vegan foods
that are, dare I say, bougie.
I mean, they're kind
of like, fancy cheeses,
and like, fancy spreadable meats,
and ratatouilles and
casseroles and things,
'cause A, that's what
we are used to eating,
and B, I'm not interested in just having
a square block of tofu.
Hi, I'm Ella Nemcova, and
today we're gonna make
three vegan cheeses.
I experienced this huge transformation
when I started eating clean.
I would wake up in the
morning and be like, boom!
I'm digesting fast, I feel very energized.
And don't get me wrong, like, I'm human.
I cheated along the
way, and over the years
I discovered that having
a break, having a cheat,
doesn't mean like, that's it, you're done,
like you're out of the vegan club.
What it really means is
you're on this journey
to eat cleaner, eat better.
If you're not completely vegan,
or you don't wanna be
completely vegan, that's okay,
you don't have to be there all the way,
you don't have to be a 10.
But you can be a 6.5, you know,
it's better than being a three.
Vegan cheeses are gonna taste
similar to regular cheeses,
they're not going to be exact replicas.
If somebody is going to
taste a vegan cheese and say,
"Well, this doesn't taste like milk,"
I'm gonna say, "Well, you are right."
So one of my favorite
ways to use the mozzarella
is in the summertime
with a slice of fresh,
beautiful, ripe tomato, a little basil,
you can drizzle even a
little olive oil on there.
It also works really great melted.
You can melt it on a pizza,
you can stuff it inside
a vegan calzone with some
of the cashew ricotta.
One of the other reasons
that, in my recipe,
we boil the cashews first,
it cooks some of the cashewness out,
and it kind of assimilates
it a little more to dairy.
So this cheese is really
great to use in a lasagna,
you could use this in stuffed shells.
With any pasta, you can whisk this in
and just pump up the
flavor and the creaminess.
You know, I kinda think
people are angry at vegans
because vegans are angry at them.
But to shame people for
what they're eating,
I don't think that works.
There's so many great
awesome things out there
that can replace meat
and dairy these days,
that I say all right, well,
we're not gonna take it away,
but why don't we offer you
this other thing to try?
Try it, if it doesn't
kill you, try it again.
If it doesn't kill you more,
guess how many other
beings it's not killing.
We know now that because of climate change
and because of our depletion of resources,
that the amount of meat and
dairy that we are producing now,
we can no longer continue
to produce at that rate,
at that volume, to satisfy
our growing population.
But if that's how we are trained to eat,
and that's what we know about food,
it's helpful to have,
like, a transitional food.
I loved cheese.
And we can create creaminess,
and we can create a lot of
things that we want from cheese,
from a sweetness to a meltiness,
those things are all happening.
The point of the story is,
if you're reducing your
animal consumption,
if you're reducing the impact
it has on the environment,
you're reducing the impact
it has on your body,
and you're reducing the impact it has
on all of those animals.
You can eat a little bit less meat
and a little bit less dairy,
and start to feel better.
All right.
(upbeat music)
(chip crunches)
Mm, mm,
good job.
(upbeat music)
