Guest Post, Empowered Sustanance: Dairy Free Cottage Cheese

If you haven’t yet heard, Wednesdays are our Guest Blogger Series day! It’s a day where Matt and I get a bit of a mid-week break while getting to share with you some of our favorite online bloggers. And for their hard work, they get the benefit of your readership – we encourage you to please show all of them your support by visiting their blog and social media links at the end of this post!

This week (second post in our series of bloggers that make the Paleo Parents feel old) our guest is Lauren from the terrific blog Empowered Sustenance. She shares recipes and information about her own journey, whereby she has successfully treated her ulcerative colitis with nutrition and other techniques. This week, she shares her discovery of dairy-free, coconut milk cottage cheese!



Dairy Free Cottage Cheese

Cottage cheese has never made many appearances in my house. My parents never even bothered introducing my sister and I to the oddly-textured dairy product. I think the only time actual cottage cheese containers have housed themselves in our refrigerator is after raspberry picking. I’ll explain. My grandpa, a weathered and stubborn Dane, cultivates a veritable Eden on his few acres in Washington state. His garden exponentially multiplies everything he grows–a few rows of potatoes somehow yields a hundred pounds, for example. But his raspberry bushes are the most prolific. Every July for as long as I can remember, my parents, sister and I don sun hats, tie buckets to our waist with rope, and prepare for a few hot hours of raspberry picking. After picking–our bellies full of juicy berries and our arms covered in a lacy pattern of scratches from the raspberry bushes–we pack our loot into the empty cottage cheese containers Grandpa provides. He must eat gallons of cottage cheese each year and squirrel away the containers for raspberry season. I must have been nine years old the first time I saw actual cottage cheese, and not simply its empty plastic container. And I was not impressed. After all, what is so appealing about lumpy milk?

Coconut milk cottage cheese topped with thawed organic berries from my freezer!

An Unusual Technique for Dairy Free Cottage Cheese

Recently, I was experimenting with my Dairy and Egg Free Strawberry Mousse recipe. I thickened coconut milk with gelatin, omitted the sweetener and strawberry pureé, and let it set. I wondered if I could achieve a fluffier texture by whipping the coconut “jello” with beaters instead of blending it in a food processor. After 20 seconds of blending, I discovered the mixture looked just like cottage cheese. I topped the mixture with thawed blueberries from my freezer and a drizzle of honey. It tasted creamy, luscious, and rich. The gelatin lends protein and the coconut milk packs healthy fats for a satisfying meal. This faux-cottage cheese is best enjoyed with your choice of toppings–it doesn’t work well in baking/cooking recipes calling for traditional cottage cheese.

Coconut Milk Cottage Cheese

2 cups additive free coconut milk

4 tsp. gelatin, preferably from pastured animals such as this one

pinch of sea salt

Fruit and honey, optional, for serving

In a small bowl, sprinkle the gelatin over 1/4 cup of the coconut milk. In a small saucepan, bring the remaining coconut milk to a simmer. Whisk in the softened gelatin mixture and whisk vigorously until dissolved. Pour into a bowl and refrigerate until set, at least 5 hours. Using a handheld mixer or standing mixer, blend on medium speed for 20-30 seconds until the texture resembles cottage cheese. Add a pinch of salt and any desired toppings.

Enjoy! Makes about 2 cups

About Lauren

Lauren is the 19-year-old real food blogger at EmpoweredSustenance.com. After struggling with ulcerative colitis for five years, she decided to dive head first into healing her body with nutrition and a holistic lifestyle. She follows the GAPS diet and enjoys sharing her creative, grain free recipes and healing tools with others. She offers a free, retro-inspired Grain Free Holiday Feast e-cookbook on her blog.