I was so excited for the opportunity to review Galaxy Nutritional Foods line of Rice Vegan cheeses! After going dairy-free due to Iron Deficiency Anemia, which you can read more about HERE, I gave up cheese, which was not a big deal. I've really never been a huge cheese fan. And besides, giving up dairy was only a temporary deal that my doctor and I agreed upon since dairy inhibits iron uptake (you can learn about other foods that inhibit uptake of iron HERE). When I was back on my feet again, I was told I could slowly reintroduce dairy in small amounts. That was 8 months ago and I am still dairy-free. I attempted to bring dairy back at the end of last year, ...

and it was then that I realized I had a severe intolerance to all things dairy. Severe. No wonder I felt so good during my dairy hiatus! So, I gave it up again, and replaced dairy products with things like rice milk, non-dairy soy-free buttery spread for baking, and ... oh, yeah... I didn't replace the cheese. That's kind of difficult when you have nut and soy allergies. I just gave up and moved on - no big loss. Until I wanted to make pizza for the kids and didn't want to make a separate dinner for myself. Somehow pizza without cheese just doesn't seem like pizza to me...

I made the pizza, used real cheese, and made something else for myself. Grrr...

I had given up on cheese until I discovered that Galaxy Nutritional Foods makes a rice vegan cheese product. I already know what you're thinking. What about daiya? Honestly, I really don't know how to answer that other than, I simply did not miss cheese enough to bother trying it. This newfound need for dairy-free soy-free cheese was really a product of my wanting to keep things in the kitchen efficient by having everyone eat the same foods. Those of you with multiple food allergies and intolerances know exactly what I mean.

Galaxy was kind enough to provide cheddar and mozzarella blocks as well as American slices for review.

Both the cheddar and mozzarella blocks grated very nicely, as you can see in the above photo. I tried several recipes with the cheese products, one of which was a delicious polenta lasagna. It's a kind of tossed together dish that you can adapt to your tastes and preferences, so instead of a recipe, I'll just provide a basic guideline, then you can make it your own.

I stared with polenta (a very finely ground variety, but not instant) that I cooked, then spread onto a foil-lined baking sheet in a thin layer so that it could be chilled and cut into squares that would take the place of traditional lasagna noodles in my dish.

While the polenta chilled, I prepared the filling for my lasagna with an assortment of chopped veggies like artichokes, red onion, and roasted red pepper. I added a drizzle of olive oil, and a sprinkle of herbs that we dried from last year's garden (rosemary and thyme) along with some freshley ground black pepper (I didn't add salt, as the artichokes were from a can and I find that they add enough salt for this mixture; if you like more salt, by all means, shake some in!). If the kiddos were not eating this dish, I would have added red pepper flakes - some like it hot (just not my kiddos)!

Then I blended up a simple tomato sauce, and by that time, the polenta was ready to slice, and I assembled the lasagna by spooning a bit of sauce into my baking dish, topping with a layer of polenta slices, which I topped with a scoop of the veggie mix and a sprinkle of grated Galaxy Mozzarella. I repeated the layers 3 times, then topped with the remaining sauce and cheese.

Note: I used an 8x8-inch square baking dish. I made a single batch of polenta and spread it onto a foil-lined 9x13-inch cookie sheet. Lining the pan was helpful when it was time to slice, as I lifted the entire chilled slab of polenta from the pan and sliced it with a pizza cutter right on the foil. It took approximately 45 minutes for the polenta to chill - I did not cool mine to room temperature prior to chilling.

I baked the lasagna for approximately 40 minutes until it was nice and bubbly. So how did it turn out? See for yourself...

The dish tasted amazing! All those flavors came together with the tomato sauce to make a flavorful statement, and the polenta was firm yet creamy - I loved it. And what about the cheese? Well, let's be honest folks, you can see in the photo above that this product doesn't melt as real cheese would melt, so that was a bit of a disappointment for me; however, the flavor is not off-putting at all, and I would use it again. But if you are looking for a melty, gooey cheese product, this is not it. The American slices; however, did melt for grilled sandwiches, which was nice (pics of that to come).

I made a couple of other dishes with the cheddar block, and I'll talk about that in an upcoming post.

Thank you to Galaxy Nutritional Foods for the Rice Vegan Cheese products!

In the interest of full disclosure: Galaxy Nutritional Foods provided product in exchange for this review; however, all opinions expressed here are my own and are a true and unbiased review of the product(s) described.