substitutes

Super Super Bowl Snack: ajitsuke-nori
02/02/2010 - 16:34

Lately ajitsuke-nori has been supplanting kale chips as my paleo snack of choice. Ajitsuke-nori is nori toasted with a nasty paste, typically made from soy sauce, rice wine, fish paste, and chili pepper. You can buy it as a Japanese grocery, but it's hard to find without gluten-containing soy sauce. You can make it yourself simply by painting a sheet of nori with a mixture of gluten-free soy sauce, rice wine, and your favorite flavorings. Brush it on and toast until the coating is dry and the nori crispy...voila! A delicious snack rich in iodine and other essential minerals.

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Dances With Vegans I: Dr. Cow Cheese
01/17/2010 - 18:08

 In an ongoing series where I test out products obviously meant for vegans, not paleo weirdos. 

This time it's Dr. Cow Cheese, made in Brooklyn for the indigenous vegan population and purchased at the local co-op, an ancient Brooklyn hunting and gathering ground guarded over by a tribe of ancient and bitter hippies. 

Plenty of paleo dieters tolerate dairy well, unfortunately I am not one of them. Even if it's delicious raw grass-fed artisan cheese from France, it will make me sick. It's too bad because tangy cheese used to be one of my favorite ingredients in salads. 

So when I discovered Dr. Cow Cheese, I was eager to try it. It is made from soaked nuts and fermented with probiotic bacteria. Nuts, particularly cashew nuts, and probiotic fermentation are contentious in the paleo community, but my philosophy is that nuts are OK in small quantities and many of us have taken antibiotics are are probably deficient in beneficial bacteria. 

It's expensive and doesn't taste too much like cheese, but it has the tangy flavor I crave and a little goes a long way crumbled on salad. I have also had the "cream" cheese with smoked salmon and it's pretty delicious. Not a dietary staple, but definitely a delicious treat. 

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