[sharr610]

Hi there!

I have a dear friend who is gluten and dairy free. What she always says she misses the most is pizza. I was thinking about making her a few individual frozen pizzas for a christmas presents. I found a gluten free crust recipe, but have heard nightmares about cheese...For those of you who are seasoned dairy free/vegans, whats your favorite dairy free cheese for pizzas?
I live in a very vegan friendly town, so have access to a lot of diff options and brands...

TIA!

Stephanie

 

[mom2cash]

Can she handle goat cheese? Depending on why she is avoiding dairy, she could be able to tolerate it. I would go with goat cheese WAY before using something like soy cheese. Soy cheese is notorious for not melting and coming from someone who is gluten-free, gluten free crust + soy cheese does not sound appetizing.

 

[sharr610]

She's tried the goat cheese and can't handle it...sigh.

Well, as someone who is gluten free, do you have any favorite baked goods recipes that I might be able to make for her. Perhaps the pizza is just a no go...

 

[mom2cash]

Whole Foods has lots of yummy gluten-free baked goods mixes. Pamela's and Bob's Red Mill baking mixes are my favorites... they have stuff like cake mixes, brownies, cookies, etc. And at some Whole Foods you can buy gluten-free pie crusts and fill them with whatever gluten-free filling you like (I just did pumpkin pie yesterday). There are lots of gluten-free blogs that I get recipe ideas from like www.glutenfreegirl.blogspot.com (but she's not dairy free) and http://karinasrecipes.blogspot.com where there are plenty of GF/CF recipes. The thing about gluten-free baking though its reliant on a combination of flours and "binders" to recreate the lack of gluten in the baked good so it's an uphill battle with trying to find recipes that work and taste good. Also, its kind of an investment to get all the gluten-free flours you might need in a recipe (some call for 6 different kinds!) so I would definitely go with a gluten-free mix from the store. If you don't have a whole foods near you there are *TONS* of gluten-free mixes online. HTH and I'm sure your friend really appreciates that you're trying to accomodate her intolerances.

 

[lil_miss_understood]

DS1 is gfcfef- gluten free, casein free and egg free. He likes Amy's dairy free, gluten free pizza- both the personal size "cheese" and the larger spinach ones.
The "best" (although it's the only one I've found so far) gluten free and dairy free "cheese" is Follow Your Heart. DS1 likes it, but it's best melted. That's not to say it melts as well as we'd like but it does melt.

 

[Buddhamom]

We use Vegan Gourmet in the mozarella flavor and it melts awesome! We get it at Whole Foods or our co-op. They also make a Monterey Jack that is great for mexican food.

 

[lil_miss_understood]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Buddhamom We use Vegan Gourmet in the mozarella flavor and it melts awesome! We get it at Whole Foods or our co-op. They also make a Monterey Jack that is great for mexican food.

We're actually talking about the same cheese.

 

[kjbrown92]

What is this cheese made of? (just curious since I'm sure we can't have it).
Also, surprisingly, my DS CAN have water buffalo milk cheese (real mozzarella) though DD2 and I can't have it (neither of them can have cow's milk or goat's milk).

 

[lil_miss_understood]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kjbrown92 What is this cheese made of? (just curious since I'm sure we can't have it). Also, surprisingly, my DS CAN have water buffalo milk cheese (real mozzarella) though DD2 and I can't have it (neither of them can have cow's milk or goat's milk).

No, it's soy, Kathy.

It's something I very rarely indulge in because of that.

 

[tanyalynn]

Instead of cheese, we're using deeply caramelized onions on top of our pizzas these days. I use the sauce and dough recipe from Living Without magazine. I was a bit skeptical of the onion idea, but it is amazingly tasty. It probably helps that I put bacon and sausage on the pizza and cook the onions in the fat from them, but the sweetness works very, very well.

 

[Buddhamom]

Yeah, we love that soy cheese. We are vegan so it is a staple in our house. It melts better if you shred it instead of slicing it