Dear Daiya, I Heart You

I joke a lot about liking sweets (donuts! ice cream!), junk food (nachos! french fries!), and-- presumably because I went veg so young-- old-school, low-brow concoctions akin to the kind I enjoyed before the time came when I discovered and acknowledged the suffering that was involved with many of the foods I was eating and ceased doing so.  This was many, many, MANY years ago before there were so many delicious and realistic analogues and substitutes in existence, let alone widely available (yes, before the internets).  As a result, "going without" took getting used, but was really the only option.  So much so that in recent years it's actually been somewhat mind-boggling to reacquaint myself with foods in their faux form (hello fried shrimp and thank you, Red Bamboo) and I find that enjoying these items in extreme moderation is sufficient.

But in the grand scheme of things, it's not a joke; I really do like sweets, junk food & low-rent foodstuffs (yay Fruity Pebbles!).  High on that list would be the elusive-until-recently grilled cheese sandwich.  You see, it's possible that I like grilled cheese sandwiches as much as I like love peanut butter sandwiches.  But at some point I gave up trying to find a suitable cheese substitute, and simply doubled, okay tripled, my peanut butter sandwich intake instead.

And then came Daiya.  I won't bore you with the story of how we met, but you should know that the affair continues.  Since I order mine online and it has a relatively short shelf life, it's not yet a frequent staple of my diet.  Read: it's still a thrill everytime I have some.  This evening was no exception.

I remembered that I had frozen a half a bag of cheddar Daiya as a test.  So, I transferred it to the fridge to thaw for a couple of hours and then proceeded to assemble a monster grilled cheese on Dave's Killer Bread.  The results were twofold:

1. Behold my super-cheesy, crazy-delicious grilled cheese sandwich.
2. Bask in the success of the freeze test: the frozen & thawed Daiya was no different in taste, texture, or cookability than fresh Daiya. 

So there you have it, I officially heart Daiya.