(calm music)
- Hey, what's up, everybody?
It's your girl, Merle.
Today, we're doing something really cool.
We're gonna make vegan grilled cheeses
at three different time intervals.
We're gonna make one at five minutes.
We're gonna make one at 50 minutes
and we're gonna make one at five hours.
So let's get to it.
In this first one, we only have five minutes.
Here we have about four and a half ounces of tofu.
You can use paper towels if you want.
I'm trying to be a little more sustainable
so I'm using a cloth and I'm just gonna wrap this up like so
and now that we've got this all wrapped up,
we're just gonna put a big old book
or you can put a cast iron pan on top of it
to help drain the liquid.
While I have my tofu draining,
I'm gonna go ahead and pop two pieces of white bread
on the skillet.
So these only need about a minute per side.
Let's take our tofu out.
Now we're gonna add this to our food processor.
Some nutritional yeast, apple cider vinegar,
organic sugars, refined coconut oil and a teaspoon of salt.
Let's kick that off.
I know what you're thinking.
You're thinking, Merle, that is like a cream cheese,
that's not a grilled cheese but listen,
we're not copping out and doing the store-bought cheese.
We're making it from scratch.
So you gotta give me a little bit of flexibility here, okay,
and technically the bread is toasted so, so there.
If you want melty cheesy
in the traditional sense of a grilled cheese,
just wait for the next couple recipes.
We're gonna transfer our cheese mixture to a bowl.
Now we're just onto the final step.
We're gonna add in some very thinly sliced chives,
some fresh dill and some fresh parsley
and the last bit here is assembly.
We've got our two beautifully toasted pieces of bread.
I'm gonna go ahead and spread my cheese on there
and I'm just gonna top it off with some tomato slices
and that's it.
It's got the cheesy flavor from the nutritional yeast
and a little bit of tang from the apple cider vinegar.
It's not a real cheese in the traditional sense
but it only takes five minutes.
It's very healthy.
It's all healthy ingredients
and it's got some good protein to it.
Whoo, that is so good.
Mm, mm, oh my gosh, it's really good.
Really, really good.
I'm very satisfied with that.
Let's move on to our next one.
So the thing we're gonna start with
is by adding some carrots and some cashews to a medium pan
and I'm just gonna cover this with water
and then I'm gonna bring it to a boil
and let it cook for about 10 minutes.
Okay, so this is done.
I'm going to remove the cashews and the carrots
and I'm just gonna put them into my blender.
We wanna use one and three quarter cups
of our cooking liquid.
Now we're gonna add our nutritional yeast,
lemon juice, some garlic powder, turmeric, salt
and then we're gonna add our tapioca starch.
Tapioca starch is a natural vegan ingredient
that is derived from the cassava plant.
It's found in a lot of vegan cheeses
and then finally, we're gonna add our agar-agar
which is derived from a red algae.
Now we're gonna transfer our cheese to a medium pan.
Now what I'm gonna do
is I'm gonna continually whisk this over a medium heat
and that heat is gonna activate the agar-agar
and give it that great gooey, stretchy, cheesy goodness.
So now we're gonna transfer our mixture to a baking sheet.
I've got a silicone mat.
A nice zero waste option for your baking and cooking needs.
We just wanna spread it out into a nice even layer.
Now we're just gonna set this in the fridge
to cool for about 30 to 40 minutes and in the meantime,
we're gonna make our delicious avocado salad.
We're gonna start by dicing up a cucumber,
put all your scraps in your little compost bowl.
Don't forget to compost.
All right, onto our tomatoes.
We know Merle, you've showed us a thousand times
that you can juggle but it never stops getting cool.
(applause)
So now it's just time to do a really simple dressing.
I'm just gonna add the juice from one lemon,
two tablespoons of olive oil, salt and pepper to taste.
I'm gonna use a big ole bunch of fresh parsley
and we're just gonna mix this up.
This salad is so simple and refreshing.
It's the perfect addition
to the side of a delicious grilled cheese.
So it's time to take the cheese out of the fridge
and let's see how it looks.
Look at that.
Oh yeah, look at that.
That is so cool.
I'm so happy about this right now.
I'm gonna take this to the skillet
and then let's see how she melts.
Here we have our 50 minute grilled cheese.
It's looking so beautiful.
It's got the melt to it.
It's got the color.
It's got the stretch.
That amazing cheese pull.
It takes under an hour to make
and you have a little extra time
to make a salad on the side.
We're down to our last recipe here.
If you wanna do everything top to bottom,
this is the grilled cheese for you.
So we're pulling out all the stops for this one.
We're gonna make our own bread.
We're gonna make a homemade delicious roasted tomato soup
and we're gonna make two different kinds of vegan cheese.
We're gonna make a smoked Gouda and a cheddar.
We got a lot of work to do.
Let's get into it.
The first thing we gotta do is make our bread.
So to start this whole thing off,
I've got two cups of warm water,
about a half a teaspoon of sugar
and finally, some active dry yeast.
I'm gonna let this do its thing.
I'm gonna give it like 10 to 15 minutes
and when we come back, it should be all foamy and bubbly
and we can proceed.
So we're looking nice and foamy in here.
So now it's time to add some salt
and some bread flour and some whole wheat flour
and now I'm gonna use my rubber spatula
and I'm gonna just mix this so it all combines.
I'm gonna just quickly wet my hands
and I'm going to knead it a little bit
so we can work out all the dry spots.
We want the dough to be a little bit wet
but be able to pull away cleanly from the sides of the bowl.
The next step is to just cover this bowl
with a damp washcloth and then we're gonna set it aside
to proof for 80 minutes and while the dough is rising,
we're gonna make our tomato soup.
The first thing we wanna do is arrange our tomatoes
cut side up in a baking sheet.
We're gonna season them with some salt.
After that, we're gonna scatter the shallot,
garlic and thyme leaves over the tomatoes,
drizzle your olive oil evenly over everything
and then we're gonna transfer the tomatoes to the oven
and bake them for 80 minutes.
Now we're working on our cheeses.
The first thing we wanna do is soak our cashews
for our cheddar cheese.
So first, we're gonna head over to the sink
and we're gonna just rinse out these cashews
under hot tap water
and then we're gonna cover them with fresh hot water
and let those sit while we go on to make our smoked Gouda.
So the first thing we're gonna do
is spray our container with some nonstick spray
then we wanna take our smoked paprika
and we're just gonna add it in there.
We're gonna sprinkle it in there.
So we wanna make sure this is evenly distributed
and fully coated.
It'll all make sense soon.
Just trust me.
I'm just gonna set this to the side for now.
All right, so now we're gonna add a bunch of our ingredients
into this high speed blender.
I've got some full fat coconut milk,
about a quarter cup of filtered water, some tapioca starch
and now we're gonna add in some kappa carrageenan
and it's known as like a thickener or a binder.
It's an emulsifying stabilizer.
So it'll act as our jelling agent.
All right, we're gonna add some nutritional yeast,
some tamari, psyllium husk, sugar, garlic powder
and finally some liquid smoke.
So now I've got a medium sauce pan.
I'm gonna add a little bit of coconut oil to it
and we are going to transfer our mixture here into the pot.
Now that we have this in here,
I'm gonna turn the heat up to medium
and bring this up to a simmer
and then I'm gonna turn it down to like a medium low
whisking it consistently for about six minutes.
It's looking very, very smooth and gooey
which is exactly what we want
and now that we're done whisking,
we're gonna take it off the heat and we're just gonna add
a little bit of apple cider vinegar.
We want that flavor to imbue itself into the cheese
and if we put it in before, it would cook right out.
Okay, so now I'm just going to transfer this
to my prepared container.
I'm just gonna pop this in the refrigerator
for about an hour and in the meantime,
we can move on to our cheddar cheese.
So we're gonna drain the cashews that we had soaking.
We're gonna add those to our blender
then we're gonna add some really hot water,
tapioca starch, kappa carrageenan, nutritional yeast.
miso, some roasted red peppers,
some turmeric for that great color and finally, some salt.
Now we're going to blend this all together
until it's very, very smooth.
We're gonna transfer this over to our medium sauce pan.
Ooh, pretty color.
Now we're gonna add a couple tablespoons of coconut oil.
Now, the process is basically the same as before.
Okay, so now that the bread has risen,
we are going to take a rubber spatula
and I'm gonna fold the dough towards the center of the bowl
about eight times.
Okay, now that we're done,
I'm going to cover this with a towel
and set it aside to proof for one more hour.
In the meantime, I'm gonna raise the temperature on my oven
to 450 degrees Fahrenheit,
put my Dutch oven inside there to start to heat that up.
So now that the tomatoes have cooled off,
I'm gonna use my fingers and I'm going to pull the skin off
and set that aside in my little compost bowl.
Now we're gonna transfer the tomatoes, shallot and garlic
along with any liquid to a medium pot.
So we've got all of that delicious goodness in the pot.
Now we're just gonna add some vegetable broth
and I've got a cool little trick here.
We're gonna add some Arborio rice.
The rice is gonna thicken the soup
when we blend it all together.
So that's a great little vegan hack
for making your soups creamier.
I'm gonna bring this to a boil
and then I'm gonna let it simmer for about 20 to 25 minutes.
While our soup is a simmering,
we are going to turn out our dough.
Now we're gonna transfer our dough
onto a piece of parchment paper.
Up and in.
All right, so while our bread is baking,
let's go back to our soup.
This part's really easy.
We're just gonna use an immersion blender and blend it up.
I'm just gonna keep this on a very low heat
until we're ready to eat it.
Our bread is good to go.
It's all cooled down.
It looks beautiful.
Now it's time to slice this up,
take those vegan cheeses out of the fridge
and assemble our gourmet grilled cheese.
(dramatic music)
Oh my God.
Holy (beep)
That is good.
It's got the meltiness, it's got the gooeyness
and the stretchiness.
The Gouda and the cheddar are so flavorful and delicious
and it's very reminiscent of actual cheese.
You have been properly spoiled today.
You got three brand new vegan grilled cheese recipes.
Thank you so much for watching
and I hope you have a glorious day.
We're not cutting around any corners for this.
We're gonna make a delicious homemade bet.
We're gonna make.
In.
We're gonna make our own delish.
We're going to make a home.
All right, so now we wanna add a bunch of our,
all right, so now we're gonna, so, okay.
Now you're gonna wanna.
Okay, so now we're gonna wanna.
All right, all right, this is all.
All right, so she's looking nice and foamy.
Alright, so we're looking, all right.
(calm music)