Daiya is the O'Doul's of cheese

There's queso on my quesadilla! No really, it's vegan cheese, but it's cheese. Daiya cheese melts, is stringy, and tastes really, really good. You've seen me make "ninjadilla" before-since I couldn't really call them quesadillas without the cheese-and I would have sworn that they didn't need the cheese. I was wrong. It's even better with the daiya. I used cheddar flavored daiya on the quesadilla. Who cares what the rest of the filling is it's freakin' cheesy...but in case you do care, it's black beans, tomatillo salsa, and rice. On the side is chipotle vegenaise, and some awesome Zukay salsa.

OK, now for the vegan meat lover's pizza. This was killer. Well, without any animals being actually killed. I used the Italian style daiya, field roast apple sage sausage, and Yves pepperoni. Melty cheese, spicy peperoni, and meaty sausage, and yes, it's totally vegan. Compared with any boxed freezer pizza, this would definitely fool an omni. The daiya cheese is almost buttery and tastes shockingly like cheese.

I've got a bazillion veggies from the CSA that I really should be eating instead of vegainzing freakin' meat lover's pizzas. Don't worry though, there's some eggplant and zucchini snuck into the sauce, and fried eggplant is great on the pizza, too. Sometimes it's just satisfying to make something inherently meaty totally meatless.

Daiya is a little hard to come by just yet (some of the NYC vegan restaurants like Candle 79 and Blossom are serving it) and I ordered mine online from pangea the vegan store. You can also order it from Cosmo's vegan shop.