Vegan butter v. veggie shortening

[lifevnews]

I can't find any non-hydrogenated shortening where I live and wonder if I can use vegan butter in a recipe that calls shortening.
I could use hydrogenated shortening, but I am just too grossed out by the thought of it.

Also, is there a substitute for vegan parmesan?

Comments

[supercarrot]

like kraft parmesan in the green canister? yeah, i am a fan of galaxy's parmesan. but there's also parma and some others, or you can make your own with nutritional yeast and sesame seeds and like walnuts or something.

[owlsie]

yeah i just use nut. yeast by itself, i think it tastes a lot like parmesan.

OP you can use coconut oil in place of shortening. It will of course give you a slightly coconutty taste.

[lifevnews]

Specialty items are very hard to get where I live. Things like coconut oil would necessitate a special trip.
I'll have to get some nutritional yeast.

[the_leh]

Coconut oil and nutritional yeast can both be bought online. Mountainroseherbs.com sells coconut oil, I'm sure lots of other places do as well. I know for a fact that Frontiercoop.com sells nutritional yeast, and again, with a little googling, you could probably find other retailers.

[the_leh]

You can sub vegan "butter" (I presume you mean earth balance?) for shortening. It should come out fine. That said, non hydrogenated shortening isn't hard to find. Any grocery store should have it.

This is the best vegan "parmesan" sub I've ever found. It's from the now out of print Yellow Rose Recipes by Joanna Vaught.

1/2 cup walnuts
1/2 cup raw cashews
1/2 cup brown rice flour
1/2 cup nutritional yeast
1 Tbs garlic powder
2 tsp salt

Throw it all in a food processor and pulse until crumbly.

Bob's Red Mill makes brown rice flour, and you can buy it online if you can't find it in your local grocery stores (it is a bit of a specialty item). Don't sub anything for it, it really is a unique product, if you can't find it/don't want to buy online, then just omit it. The parmesan will still be good without it.

[the_leh]

Oh, and store it in an airtight container in the fridge. It keeps for a long time, probably up to a few weeks.

[lifevnews]

Thanks.

[alormont]

There's a good almonesan (almond based parm) recipe in the Vegan Family Cookbook. I can type it up if you are interested.

[ext_715531]

Hm, I live in a small place and we have coconut oil. It should be around the shortening (I get a huge $5 jar) and that one doesn't smell or taste like coconut oil at all.