Cottage Cheese help!!!

[freelivez2]

So I am a vegetarian and I realize that I need a lot more protein than I have been fueling myself with. Trouble is, many things such as cottage cheese have been tramatizing foods for me in the past. Maybe I'll tell you about beets and chittlings later. Anyways, I tried cottage cheese at a Valentino's Buffet a couple weeks ago and I liked it. I kinda asked myself why I had turned my nose up to it for so long. But then today after a visit to my local grocery and a purchase of my first tub of cottage cheese I found myself holding my nose and bribing myself to get the 1/2 cup down. Any suggestions on how I can make this experience more tolerable? I've seen my Dad eat it with pears? and some say pepper but I tried the pepper and I just don't know. I can't waste the tub so I have got to eat it. Any suggestions or other high in protein vegetarian proteins?

[farrellcollie]

You can cook with it - use it in vegetable lasagna for example. I like it toasted on bagels instead of cream cheese.

[KnottedYet]

I love cottage cheese! I buy huge tubs of it at Costco! I tend to eat it plain most of the time, or with pepper. Other ideas:

1. put a little scoop (a table spoon or so) into your scrambled eggs as you're cooking them.

2. Use on a baked potato instead of sour cream.

3. Layer with applesauce and top with honey. (applesauce, cottage cheese, honey)

4. Mash it up and use it in baking recipes.

5. Roll it up in crepes, top with raspberry sauce or fresh raspberries.

6. Stuff a hollowed out tomato with cottage cheese, and stick it under the broiler until the cheese browns a little. Or spread it on a bagel and broil.

[KnottedYet]

As far as other high-protien vegetarian stuff:
I really like tempeh, tofu, quinoa, and beans-corn-rice. (mmmmm, daifuku!) At least as a vegetarian rather than vegan you can do eggs and milk, which are always good protein back-up.

I love the Moosewood cookbooks. Lots of great vegetarian recipes, and some good nutritional info in the back of the original (first) Moosewood cookbook.

[Grog]

I make myself wicked toast for breakfast most days. From bottom to top, here it is:

Wholegrain bread
Honey
Peanut butter
Cottage Cheese
Banana slices

Better with raspberries, but we're not in season.

I also have it with hard broiled eggs, salt and pepper.

[doc]

Mix blackberry jam into the cottage cheese. Yummm

[GLC1968]

I hate cottage cheese and refuse to eat it as is. I do use it in tons of recipes though. For me, the issue is the texture...taste is fine, but I just can't get past that texture. *shudder*

That said, if you really need to eat it, I've heard of three suggestions that might help you. 1) blend it so its smooth and use it as a topping on fruit, toast, crackers, etc. 2) mix with fruit yogurt (1/2 cc and 1/2 yogurt) or 3) mix in some apple butter.

[Thorn]

As Knotted said, tempeh, tofu, quinoa and rice & beans. The Horn of the Moon cookbooks are also very good. Sometimes I think they're better, at least for soups.

But, at the end of last summer we went through a similar situation. Our exercise had increased and we were missing proteins. We started throwing TVP into our plain red tomato sauces and including more tempeh and flavored tofus in what used to be just vegetable stir fries. Also, I try to grab some pistachios or cashews when I feel like chips (although walnuts would be better for you). When we get tired of bean soups, my DH makes a kick-butt tomato-peanut soup (sounds revolting, I know, but it tastes great).

Sorry, no hope on the cottage cheese....when I'm eating out at a salad bar, I'll often put cottage cheese on my salad, but usually only after a ride when I need that extra protein.

[Julibird]

Here's a link to a virtual shrine to cottage cheese - with yummy ideas:
http://www.stumptuous.com/cms/displayarticle.php?aid=23

Bon Appetit!
Julie

[DarcyInOregon]

When I was young, I sprinkled bits of bacon into the cottage cheese. It wasn't real bacon, but made from soy beans, and it came in a jar and was intended to garnish salads. The crunchy bacon taste combined with the cottage cheese was great. If that product is no longer made, then use vegetarian bacon that you cook yourself.

Currently, I like to chop sweet pickle into my cottage cheese.

Or chopped fresh tomato and green onions.

Sometimes I add sliced radishes to the above.

And I've added pine nuts and sunflower seeds.

Darcy