Vegetable & Herb Chopped Salad & a Treeline Cheese Review

One word. Treeline.

Two words. You rock.

Three words. I love you.

Four words. You make me happy.

Vegans and plant based foodies do you know what I’m talking about? If you do, I know you’ll be nodding in agreement while you read this review, and you’ll be drooling when you see what I made with the outrageously delicious Treeline nut cheese. And for those of you who don’t, you’re going to be running out to buy this as soon as you finish this post.

Let’s start at the beginning. About six months ago Alex and I discovered Treeline nut cheese while browsing the vegan cheese cooler at Whole Foods Market. The simple, but attractive packaging caught our eye, the word “French-Style” made us buy it. Because it was a French style cheese, and it was Friday, we bought some crackers, olives, and champagne and headed home to have a Parisian style happy hour. Oui-oui!

One bite and we were hooked. This was NOT like the processed vegan cheese we’d had before.

Treeline is a small artisanal dairy-free cheese company based in Kingston, New York. A small, quaint town ninety-one miles north of New York City. They create amazing soft and hard nut cheese that’s soy, gluten, and lactose free. The ingredients are simple. You won’t find chemicals or preservatives in their products, just real things like lemon juice, herbs, and spices.

Last week I spoke at a women empowering women conference that focused on wellness. I really wanted to show the ladies at the event how good vegan cheese can be, so I reached out to the owner, Michael,  of Treeline and asked him if he’d be willing to send me some samples. He graciously accepted and sent me enough for seventy women.

This was the first time since college that I spoke in front of a large group of people, and I was so nervous. As I was saying hello to the women as they arrived to the event my nerves where escalating. All I could think was, what if they don’t like what I have to say? What if I forget my talking points and stand there with nothing to say? What if I spit while I’m talking?

As I was standing there shaking hands and smiling, while playing out the what if game in my head, and making myself crazy, the nicest thing happened. A lovely woman approached me with a huge smile, introduced herself to me, and told me that she came to the event just to hear me speak. She said that she had another event to attend that night and would have to leave after my presentation. She works for Natural Awakenings magazine, and she invited me to go to a monthly holistic event that she is part of, and she also asked me if I’d be willing to speak at one.

I was so flattered and surprised, and that wonderful encounter made my nerves disappear. I gave my presentation and was so delighted to see most of the women nodding their heads in agreement about what I had to say about the horrible state of the health of the majority of the people in our country, and how a plant based diet can reverse or at least slow the progression of most diseases.

Before the presentation began there was a wine and cheese tasting. The women were given the option of dairy cheese and the Treeline soft style cheese. The nut cheese was a huge hit! When I finished my speech I sat down in the back of the room and noticed that a group of women had taken an entire platter of the Treeline cheese to their table and where devouring it. I was thrilled! During a brief break between speakers they turned and told me that they loved the Treeline cheese and my presentation. My heart was bursting with joy. That sounds corny, but it was true.

So this cheese. It’s AMAZING!!

Michael sent me four flavors of the soft cheese, two of them I’d never tried, so I was super stoked to sample them. Here’s a quick rundown on each one, but honestly, my words can’t do them justice, you’ll just have to try them for yourself. Until then, let me give you a quick description of these fantastic cheeses.

Herb-Garlic

It tastes exactly like you’d expect. There’s a mild garlic flavor and a hint of parsley, oregano, basil, and white pepper. It’s a beautiful soft cheese that is fabulous sprinkled over a salad. We used this flavor to make the dressing in this salad and it was soooooo good! You can do a lot more with these cheeses than just spread them on a cracker.

Scallion

A slightly tangy cheese with a bite of scallion. Alex made risotto with this cheese for a group of her friends a few weeks ago and they were shocked that it was vegan cheese. It made the risotto so creamy and flavorful.

Green Peppercorn

This is made with ground green peppercorns and lemon juice to give it a mild and slightly tangy flavor. It’s wonderful on crackers, in salads, or in anything that you’d want to put cheese in.

Chipotle-Serrano Pepper

This cheese is amazing! It has a kick thanks to the chipotle-morita peppers and smoked serrano pepper powder. I’m going to use this in my Mexican based recipes. I can totally see this in nachos or a taco salad.

Treeline cheese is made with real ingredients, nothing fake in this stuff. You’ll find cashews, filtered water, L. Acidophilus, sea salt, lemon juice, and the herbs and spices that give each cheese its special flavor. This is real, good for you, food.

If I ever meet Michael, the owner of this fabulous company, I’ll have to give him a big thank you hug for bringing this to me and the other health conscious food snobs of the world.

Because I didn’t want to write a review without giving you a recipe, I made a vegetable & herb chopped salad with crumbled herb-garlic cheese and an herb-garlic salad dressing to go with it. This is so easy, so simple, so delicious and so healthy. You’re going to want to make this every day.

Don’t you just love a chopped salad? All the veggies are bite size, and so easy to pick up. You don’t have to worry about trying to stuff a giant piece of lettuce in your mouth.

To make this gorgeous, colorful vegetable and herb chopped salad you’ll need four cups of chopped red leaf lettuce, two cups of chopped baby spinach, one-quarter of a cup of chopped fresh basil, one-quarter of a cup of chopped scallions, one orange bell pepper, one cup of cherry tomatoes, one cup of Kalamata olives, and half of a container of Treeline Herb-Garlic cheese.

Chop the lettuce, seed and dice the pepper, pit and chop the olives, dice the tomatoes, and put them in a large bowl. Then add the cheese and some water to a blender or a hand held immersion blender and blend until it’s creamy. I don’t like a thick and gloppy dressing, if you do, reduce the amount of water.

Now, toss the dressing and the salad together and crumble the remaining cheese on top. Take a bite and you’re going to be one happy plant eater.

Thanks to Treeline, vegans and plant based people can once again enjoy delicious cheese on their salads. And dairy cheese consumers can swap out the fat and high cholesterol for tree nut cheese. Your arteries and heart will thank you.

You have to try this cheese and then come back and tell me how much you love it. Click on this link to find Treeline in a store near you. If you can’t buy it locally you can order it from Amazon.com. Just click the images below.

  
        
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