I DON'T WANT TO GIVE UP CHEESE!

Ben and I are still working on this whole eating healthier and working-out thing.  Ben is still holding steady at about 14 lbs lost; I am currently at about 7 lbs lost.  Since we stopped the Daniel Fast, Ben's weight seems to be staying about the same, but mine has slowly began to creep up again.  How frustrating!!!  Oh well, we did get off track with eating healthy over the weekend.  Plus, we had some stomach bug over the weekend, so we didn't work out much either.  Time to get our focus back!

Ben really shouldn't eat cheese, due to his kidney's, and I shouldn't eat cheese either - for the many obvious reasons.  The problem is WE BOTH LOVE CHEESE!  So, we have been trying to find some good recipes for cheese alternatives.  Here is one we tried out recently that actually turned out pretty good.  This recipe came from vegweb.com

Nutritional Yeast Queso Sauce

    1/4 cup nutritional yeast
    1/4 cup flour
    1 teaspoon paprika
    1 teaspoon salt
    dash garlic powder
    1 cup water
    2 tablespoons margarine
    1 1/2 cups salsa or 1 (14 1/2 ounce) can diced tomatoes and peppers (RoTel or other brand)
    tortilla chips, to serve   

1. In a saucepan combine dry ingredients (nutritional yeast, flour, paprika, salt, and garlic powder).
2. Whisk in water. Continue to whisk constantly over medium heat until mixture is thick and bubbly. Remove from heat.
3. Stir in margarine until melted, then stir in salsa.
4. Return to low heat and cook just long enough for salsa to heat. Pour over chips and eat like nachos or use as a dip.

We used BRAGG Premium Nutritional Yeast Seasoning, bragg.com.  I bought this product at a local health and nutrition store.  We ended up adding extra nutritional yeast to this recipe, to give it a little more of a cheese flavor.  This product is also good to just sprinkle on top of vegetables and such.  I think it has the flavor of a very sharp cheddar. 

We will be taking the girls to their grandparents, in Missouri, shortly after they get out of school.  Most likely Ben and I will do the Daniel Fast again at that time.  It will be easier to do it again when we don't have to cook two separate dinners each night.

Anyway, just wanted to let you all know about our yummy cheese alternative discovery.