Amazing cookbook for Sauces, including I Can't Believe It's Not Cheese Sauce

June 21, 2006

Hi folks

Just wanted to give a plug for a wonderful cookbook filled with easy to make vegan sauces, dips and dressings, "The Saucy Vegetarian" by Joanne Stepaniak. I would highly recommend that anyone interested in easy vegan or vegetarian cooking check out this cookbook .

We have made several recipes from this book, and found them all to be fairly quick and really good. If you've had our pasta salad with peanut sauce that we sometimes bring to Vegan Food Parties, this is where the recipe came from. None of the recipes involve any cooking at all. Most of the ones we've tried did require a blender though.

I find this book simply wonderful anytime I have grains or vegetables on hand and don't have a specific recipe in mind. It also has some versatile dips, too. For example, I wanted a sauce for some potatoes. So I checked the index for "cheese sauce" to see what it would say, and it directed me to "I Can't Believe It's Not Cheese Sauce".

I love nutritional yeast gravy and thought this might be something along those lines. I was pleasantly surprised to find the primary ingredient in this was tahini, and white miso also gave it a slightly sharp, aged taste. Chris and I both thought it very yummy. Oh, Chris did think it had a cheddar-y taste, but -- disclaimer -- neither of us have had cheese in over a decade.

It also was a great dressing on a sandwich, too, with some tofurky slices and spinach.

Here's the recipe:

"I Can't Believe It's Not Cheese Sauce"

3/4 cup water

6 tbsp tahini

2 tbsps nutritional yeast flakes

2 tbsps fresh lemon juice

2 tbsps chopped onions (*)

2 tbsps sweet white miso

1/4 to 1/2 tsp salt

(*) used 2 green onions

Place all ingredients in a belnder and process until creamy and smooth.

Author Stepaniak recommends this for elbow macaroni and lima beans; whole-grain toast points with sliced tomatoes; yukon gold potatoes and collard greens

Enjoy :-)

Cheers,

Tammy

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