Before this year's MoFo began I was thinking on my theme and making lists of the things I wanted to blog about. One of the first things that sprang to mind was a cheese and wine party, it was something my local vegan group (we're on meet up, come join us!) had been talking about doing for a while and whilst I was in Austin I got an e-mail from my pal Melinda who's part of the group inviting me to a cheese and wine party at her house literally the day after I got home. Perfect, all of the party with none of the effort! It was last night and it turns out that Melinda is the hostess with the mostest! This party was ridiculous, there was even a playlist of cheesy music.
Despite being among the first to arrive the wine had already started to pile up.
It was all vegan, of course, and I'm sure it was great. People seemed to be enjoying it anyway!
I didn't want to rock up empty handed despite Melinda assuring us she had the food taken care of so I brought some of my favourite cheese from Treeline which I picked up in Austin as soon as I heard about the party.
I have a whole post about this stuff coming up tomorrow but, spoiler alert, everyone loved it!
Jodie also couldn't help but bring along something to share and she hooked us up with some Baked Almond Feta which she used in her Beetroot & Feta Salad too. Apologies for the terrible photo! The cheese was ridiculously delicious and I can't wait to get the recipe and give it a go myself.
Melinda had our snacks sorted too, there were water biscuits (my cheese vessel of choice) alongside the quinoa and lentil chips and fancy crackers but they didn't manage to make it into the shot.
First to the table were these very fancy cheese sticks as well as rainbow carrots with two kinds of dip, one dill and one onion which were both tasty and I enjoyed the nod towards veg!
When I do cheese sticks I usually go for the far less classy cheese and pineapple combo but these had gherkins, pickled onions and more than one kind of olive alongside both Cheddar and Mozzarella Violfe cheese. Wowza!
The next thing to fly out of the kitchen was this platter of delightful cheesy garlic toasts. Cheesey garlic bread is one of my favourite things ever so I ate quite a few pieces of this upscale, fancified version.
The cheese plate was next and it featured Smokey Mozzarisella, Pepperjack Cheezly and Vegusto's No-Moo Aromatic. Check the gorgeous presentation!
I loved the Vegusto and enjoyed a little Mozzarisella but personally I prefer that one melted. I skipped the Cheezly because, Pepperjack, but you can bet I gorged myself silly on the beautiful organic grapes.
I feel super lucky to live somewhere with such a wide range of vegan cheeses. Sure it would be nice to have Follow Your Heart, Teese, Daiya, Punk Rawk Labs or Treeline too but I don't think we're doing too badly over here on our little island.
The last two dishes made to compliment each other were the Rocket, Cherry Tomato and Tofu Haloumi Salad and the Mac & Cheese. Yeah, that's right, mac & cheese. Only one of my favourite foods ever!
I served myself a sensible portion of the mac to start with as well as a little nod to the salad (which was actually totally delicious too!) to start with but thankfully there were two casserole dishes full of mac so I got myself three helpings in the end without even needing to feel like I was stealing all the food! Phew!
The mac was cashew and nooch based which meant it was creamy and delicious, just how I like it. I loved that it was baked with a breadcrumb topping because this is something I often can't be bothered to do at home.
There was even a cheesy dessert which I skipped because I'm no fan of cheesecake. I don't know why, I realise that it's super weird, but I took a picture of my friend Rachel's slice for y'all anyway.
If the rest of Melinda's food is anything to go by I'd bet money that this was some damn fine cheesecake. I'm so glad I was in town for this party and if the food here looks as good to you as it did to me Melinda has a blog so you can check out more of her tasty eats if you're into that kinda thing.