"soy" news and stories

So many of us are lactose intolerant these days, but there are so many milk substitutes that it's difficult to know where to turn! Find out where to go, and how to incorporate these substitutes into your cooking.

These gorgeous cookies are Lolo's latest creation over at VeganYumYum. The delicate creations are definitely a labor of love - she baked them and then shaped them herself - but they look totally worth it.

I like Lolo's recipes because she takes chances with her food, swapping butter and whole milk for Earth Balance and soy milk and coming up with mouth-watering results. That's what she did with these cookies, substituting in Earth Balance and what she calls "flax egg," a mixture of ground flax seed and water, and then baking them and quickly shaping them when they came out of the oven.

Lolo filled her cookies with soy almond pudding and strawberries (and chocolate jimmies) but you could fill them with anything you wanted, or dip them in chocolate, or smother them in berries and cream...

• It's spring, and time for salads.
• The bread basket: good or bad?
• Restaurant reviews: Mulan and MKT.
• This Vermont company is making soy milk, tofu, and other alternative dairy products.
• Maple syrup: the first crop of spring in Maine.
• This week's recipes: Vegetable Cutlets, Fromage, Tuna Noodle Casserole, Baked Fennel and Tomato Casserole, Coleslaw, Maple Baked Beans, Lemon-Walnut Loaf Cake, and Nonna Santopietro's Cookies.

I wasn't always a breakfast person. That's changed in the last few years as I've discovered how much better I feel after having a substantial breakfast. Unfortunately, there are some tough choices to make. Most traditional breakfast foods are either all carbs or high in fat, or so it seems. I know there are good choices too, but the bad ones seem easier.

A researcher at the University of Illinois is working on changing that. She is on the tail end of creating a cereal made with as much soy protein as can be packed into it without having off flavors or textures. Apparently those are common problems when working with soy. The cereal also passes the FDA test to claim high fiber and high protein. The developer also worked to make the cereal low in fat.

Sounds great to me, if it tastes good. The researcher says that while it does need to be tweaked, the cereal has compared well with other healthy cereals already on the market in taste tests.

Well, I don't even know if this cereal will ever happen or if it's real in the first place. I do think it sounds promising, though. So what do you think? The perfect breakfast or ...something else?

I've heard rumors that Slashfood used to have an "Ingredient Spotlight" post, but it got lost in the shuffle. Well, never fear, Slashfoodies: it's back.

For my debut post, I'm going to go really crazy and choose...tofu. Okay, stop groaning. I know what you're thinking.

But give it a chance. Tofu is like that nerdy kid in freshman year of high school who wore his pants too high and his shirts too low, and still brought his lunch in those insulated, brightly-colored bags with the matching thermoses when the cool kids were brown-bagging it. You made fun of him all year, but when you came back to school in sophomore year, something had changed. He was...different. He held his head higher, he walked up straighter, and he was wearing khakis and polos. And if you titled your head and squinted your eyes just right, he was almost...cute.

That's like tofu. Despite its pale, jiggly appearance and its dorky past, tofu has a lot to offer if you give it a chance. If you know how to use it, tofu can be the homecoming king of dinners.

The history

Tofu is made by coagulating soy milk into bean curd, similar to the way milk turns into cheese as it ferments. (I'll pause as you salivate). It usually comes in soft, firm, and extra firm/dried varieties, the only difference being that soft has the most moisture in the curds, while extra firm has the least. It can also be fermented, made sweet, fried, or frozen before packaging.

Tofu's main claim to fame is that it's really mild, so it takes on the flavor of whatever you cook it with. Its taste and creamy consistency make it a great substitute for most dairy products, a star in smoothies, and a great addition to dressings or sauces.