In the wake of our infancy here at Red Hot Vegans we perked enough ears to receive some free food from two different vendors: Soyummi Foods and Galaxy Nutritional Foods. Our loving blog czar Marie kindly offered me the opportunity to eat the free food and blog about it. I promptly ate the food, but I neglected to blog about it. Now, with Vegan MoFo fully upon us and the push for content ever looming, I decided to dust off my pics and give that free food its due.

The good people of Galaxy Nutritional Foods sent us samples of their newish vegan cheese shreds, available in two flavors: Mozzarella and Mexican. I gave both flavors a test run with a pizza and a quesadilla. Like Daiya and Follow Your Heart, this cheese is billed as a vegan cheese that actually melts. And melt it does! In fact, it liquefies. When we ate the Mozarella on pizza we had to do some quick thinking and fold our slices up like pizza tacos to prevent burning cheese spillage. Since this cheese melts so very well, you can get away with using a little less of it than you would with other brands. Additionally, I think these cheese shreds offer a sharper and more pungent flavor. Considering the sharper flavor and the extreme meltability, I think the best use of Galaxy cheese may be in a sauce. A creamy fettucinni alfredo sauce or a spicy southwestern mac and cheese sauce would really hit the spot right now. Whole Foods sells the Galaxy cheese at a lower price than some of the other brands, and that saves you money for dessert; which brings me to the Soyummi pudding.

These individually packaged puddings are low in calories, gluten free, additive free, and refined sugar free. Rest assured: they are not flavor free. I enjoyed these puddings, finding that they taste unexpectedly fresh for something that comes from a package. Though they are light and fresh, one package of pudding will not satisfy you like a Cliff bar or a handful of nuts. If you are like me, then you could easily eat the whole four pack in one sitting. However, if all you want is a virtuous little dessert then these puddings will serve you well. I tried the dark chocolate flavor (reminds me of chocolate mousse) and the tapioca flavor (such satisfying little balls).

So there you have it! Soyummi Foods and Galaxy Nutritional Foods validated our blogger existence with some free samples. We ARE a real blog! We are!