Cheezly, cute calves and a serious discount!

This is one of my family's favourite recipes: pasties which are known as 'stegs' in our house, because of the knobbly bits along the spine (which, oops, you can't actually see in this photo...).

 You could also call them a great way to use up various leftovers that are clogging the back of your fridge. This batch contained slices of pumpkin, some black beans and leeks, and mozzarella Cheezly.
To make the stegs, you make a basic bread dough, roll out vaguely oval shapes, put your fillings (which should be already cooked) along the centre, pull the edges together and fold/crimp them.
Pierce to allow steam to escape, and bake in a hot oven for about 20 minutes.

I've probably mentioned this before, but I used to be a huge consumer of cheese before I went vegan. At high school, a regular after-school snack I'd make for myself was a cheese and Marmite sandwich - that was two big slabs of cheddar, with Marmite in the middle, no bread. Hmm.

When I went vegan six years ago, I was amazed just how easy it was to live without cheese. Actually, I was amazed that it was even possible to live without cheese!! I lost 10kg in a couple of months, and I put that down mostly to kicking the cheese habit.

Of course, now that I'm the New Zealand importer of Cheezly soy cheese, we do have (vegan) cheese in the house again. It's great! But I reckon it's not as addictive as dairy cheese, because although I love its rich, creamy texture on pizzas and on crackers and especially in toasted sandwiches, I don't feel driven to eat it every day - let alone twice a day like I did with cow cheese :-)

There are a few fields around the organic gardens where our monthly food co-op operates from, and on Saturday when we went to purchase our organic beans and grains and nuts and seeds, we met some beautiful calves.

That's my boy Mack with some of the calves. I loved meeting them, and stroking them, and seeing the steam rise off their flanks, and gazing into their big dark eyes, but I felt so so sad knowing what lies ahead for these babies. All I can do is help more people along the path to veganism, so that fewer animals suffer. It's not enough, but it's all I can do.

I promised you a discount, and here it is: I have a swag of Cheezly (mostly mozzarella, but some cheddar too) which is officially best-before 20-08-10... i.e. tomorrow! I need to move it out of my fridge, so I'm selling it off at 2 blocks for $10 (in New Zealand only...), or 4 for $20 etc etc. In fact if you want to buy 10 or more blocks, just make me an offer via email (alice at angelfood.co.nz) and we'll talk. Despite what the label says, the cheese will still be perfect for weeks to come, or even months if you freeze it. Maybe you know some vegans or dairy-intolerant folks who haven't tried soy cheese? This would make a perfect gift for them, right?