Finding Substitutes

Wait, I'm the Queen of Casseroles!  I make one on Monday and eat it for the rest of the week!  Find me a casserole that does not involve cheese, sour cream, and/or a cream-based soup.  <screaming>  The drama in my head says that I will never again eat another normal meal as long as I live.

But wait again!  Someone mentions Toffuti® sour cream substitute to me.  I rush to find some and learn that my Fry's has it in the weird special food section of the store.  Yay!  I go to Wendy's®, buy a plain baked potato and a small chili.  I rush home and... oh yeah, I forgot to mention coconut oil.  My nutritionist (mention my name) sells a coconut oil that does not have a coconut taste.  It's a fantastic butter substitute that I had already been using when the allergen news bomb arrived.

So anyway.  I take my plain baked potato home (yes, I know that I could bake them myself, thanks for sharing), smash some coconut oil into it, cover it in Toffuti® sour cream substitute, and immediately learn why "Toffuti" sounds like a swear word.  <sigh>  I pour the chili on top and that helps.

It was a sad experiment, but all was not lost.  The consistency isn't quite right on a baked potato, and there's a missing... zing.  But there really is enough genuine sour cream taste for the stuff to work in a casserole.  I think.  I haven't tried doing that yet.  :-D

And why haven't I tried it yet?  Because I'm chicken, that's why.  I want my food to taste like it always has and it just isn't going to.  I don't know what it is going to taste like and so... However.  Without using substitutes I'm down to 3 things at fast food restaurants, salad, and other high maintenance meals that require individual cooking and or lots of peeling and slicing of ingredients.  I can only do that for so long.  So I go ahead and bite the bullet (which might taste better than some of these other things I'm biting lately... but I can't prove that).

More about Toffuti® products in another post.  Right now let's talk about... soy cheese!  What?  You don't want to talk about soy cheese?  Well neither do I, really, but here we are and it's the topic.

Someone posted on my facebook page that there are some good soy cheeses out there.  So I thought to myself, "self, that green chile casserole that you make only uses cheese, no sour cream or soup, maybe that would be a good one to try."  I agreed with myself and so off I went to Whole Foods to see what was available.

I think I spent half an hour standing in front of the fake substitute cheese section trying to figure out what the heck to buy.  I settled for one that said, "grates and melts great!" on the package.  The consistency of the package alarmed me very much -- do yourself a favor and do not squeeze the soy cheese.  Or the rice cheese either for that matter.  You can't help seeing that it isn't quite the right color, and you already know it isn't going to taste quite right, there is no reason to upset yourself with the sponginess factor.  Just sayin'.

Out of curiosity I also purchased 1 lb. of fancy hamburger for $10.  Yes you read that right.  $10/lb. for organic whatever whatever ground beef.  No, I couldn't taste a difference.  Doesn't mean there wasn't one, just not one that I could detect.

I wish I could say that I rushed home and made the casserole, but grocery shopping has become exhausting with all the label reading and whatnot, so I took a nap first and then played a video game for a couple of hours before I was ready to face grating soy cheese into a casserole that I happen to love.

The cheese I got did indeed grate great as promised on the package.  I tasted one shred of it and thought with a shudder, "oh well, the green chile should cover any weirdness in taste".  Really it's not so bad, I just don't do change well.  lol

The cheese did not, however, melt great.  It melted better than some other cheeses I've had (fat free cheese doesn't melt at all).  And it worked well enough to hold the other ingredients together.  Mostly.  I can stand it, it'll work.  The recipe, you say?

Great Green Chile Casserole, from the Green Chile Bible Award-Winning New Mexico Recipes, published by Clearlight

12 corn tortillas (or 1 bag of tortilla chips)
1 can (16 oz.) hominy, drained
2 cups cheese, grated
1 onion, chopped (I use a yellow one)
2 cans (4 oz. each) green chiles, chopped (I usually use more)
1 lb. ground beef, browned (I cook the onion with it)
1 can (16 oz) green chile salsa or taco or enchilada sauce

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Quickly fry the tortillas in hot oil (corn oil or canola oil work well for this). Cover the bottom of a 9x13-inch casserole with half the tortillas (or use tortilla chips, like I do). Layer all of the hominy, 1 cup cheese, half the onion, and half the chopped green chiles over half the tortillas.

Cover with the remaining tortillas, the ground beef, the remaining cheeese (reserve a few handfuls for the top), onion, and green chiles. Pour the salsa over the top and sprinkle with additional grated cheese.

Bake for 30 minutes. Freezes well. Serves 8 to 10.