h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Black pepper and nutmeg. I still don't really get liquorice!

I love licorice but don't know anyone else who does. More for me.

Nutmeg, on the other hand (and by extension, mace)... I've got it in the spice cupboard for when recipes call for it, but till recently, the taste hadn't grown on me yet. I still find it a little "soapy" in more than teeny amounts.

Do you like the vegan cheese? Vegans I know are 50/50 between not taking dairy on principle and not taking it because they just don't like it the taste.

Some of them are really awful. There's a locally made brand that isn't bad- Daiya is the brand name. But I won't say I use it really often, as it's a little high in sodium for me (as are most of them).

I have a recipe book called The Uncheese Cookbook for making your own vegan cheeses, but I have only gotten around to trying twice. It's time consuming!

Sounds interesting - I presume they're mostly soy based? I'd love to make my own cheese, but I'd be a bit afraid of poisoning myself to tell you the truth!

I want to say the one that I did was mainly nut-based- it involved pureeing cashews, and I know it has some pimento in it for color. I am sure they are mostly soy-based, at least to some extent.

What puts me off of some of the vegan cheeses I've tried isn't usually the taste- unless it's really salty- but the texture isn't quite right. I was never a huge cheese eater in general anyway, though, so I really got the cookbook mainly for pizza and sauces. It's hard to make a potato casserole in winter without some sort of "creamy" textured sauce, and roux can be a little bland for that.