Three blind mice were sunbathing in the empty confines of an abandoned spaceship when one of them suddenly sat up and looked around.
“Hey guys,” he announced. “I’m hungry.”
The other mice sat up as well and rubbed their tummies. “So are we. Let’s get a snack.”
“Okay, where?”
“Hmm.” They thought for several minutes, alternately rubbing their tummies and the fur on their ears.
“Ooh I know,” said the first mouse. “We’re in a spaceship, right? Why don’t we go to the moon?”
The second mouse scoffed. “What is there to eat on the moon?”
“Dude,” said the first mouse. “You don’t know?” He looked at the third mouse. “You’d better tell him.”
“Dude,” said the third mouse to the second mouse. “The moon’s made of cheese. You didn’t know that?”
The second mouse’s mouth dropped open. “Cheese? Like, all of it?”
“Yeah, man. Why do you think it has all those holes?”
The second mouse gazed up towards the sky. Suddenly he jumped to his feet. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go! I want some moon cheese.”
The mice ran off to man the spaceship, whose engine soon shook to life with a gentle roar. “Up, up, and away!” shouted the first mouse.
“Where no mouse has gone before!” added the second mouse.
“That’s not technically true,” said the third mouse. “Mice have been going to space since 1951.”
“Oh be quiet,” said the second mouse. “I was being hyperbolic.”
“You were ripping off Star Trek, that’s what,” muttered the third mouse.
“Will you two stop? I want to enjoy this.”
The mice stopped arguing and lay back on the leather seats, enjoying the heady rush of space travel and the smells and sounds of the jet engine. Before they knew it, the spaceship had come to a rutting stop on the surface of the moon amidst a burst of brown smoke.
The mice donned their spacesuits and popped the ship hatch.
“Woah,” said the third mouse, jumping off the door entry onto the soft yellow surface. “It does feel cheesy.”
Up close, the surface of the moon looks an awful lot like this cheese.
The second mouse reached down to the moon’s surface to scrape off a sampling of moon cheese. “Can I eat this?”
“Only one way to find out,” said the first mouse, who was busy grating a chunk of yellow moon onto a bowl of fresh ravioli. He dug in with a fork and a look of unadulterated bliss spread over his face.
“Yum.”
“How’s it taste?”
The first mouse chewed thoughtfully. “It’s not like any cheese I’ve had before. And I’ve had a lot of cheese. Yet…it’s still indubitably cheesy.”
The second mouse nibbled at his hunk. “You’re right. It’s kind of like a cross between cheddar and gouda…with a slight hint of Roquefort.”
“You guys are nuts,” said the third mouse. “It just tastes like cheese to me.” He knelt down and began munching on the ground directly.
“Ew. Get a spoon will ya?”
“Hey guys listen!” shouted the third mouse. “I hear something! It sounds like…like a cheese river!”
And the three blind mice ran off in the direction of a whirling eddy of molten cheese flows, certain they had made the greatest discovery in the history of mousekind.
*For part 2 of the “Moon Mice” series and an accompanying cracker recipe, click here.
- 2 cups cauliflower
- 4-6 cloves of minced garlic or 2 tsp garlic powder
- 4-6 tb nutritional yeast
- 1 - 1.5 tsp sea salt
- 2 tb ghee (AIP re-intro), beef tallow, or coconut oil
- 2 tb coconut cream (optional, works w/o)
- 2 tsp lemon juice or apple cider vinegar
- 1 tsp ground turmeric
- 3 tb grassfed gelatin
- ¼ c coconut milk
- 3 tb tapioca flour or arrowroot starch
- For the full recipe, check out Best of Flash Fiction Kitchen, available here.
This post made me realize that I miss grating cheese
Need an idea for using this cheese? Make paleo pizza! Full post to follow when I’m not just using up random ingredients from the fridge, but for starters, use this bread as a dough base. 🙂
Hello, paleo/AIP pizza of my heart’s desire
Pro tip – feel free to stick the cheese in the freezer for 20 mins or so for easier/sharper grating
The recipe calls for 2 Cups cauliflower, how big do you cut the pieces to measure the 2 cups? Big chunks yield overall cauliflower than riced cauliflower or small chopped cauliflower. Thanks
Hi Kathy – yes 2 cups cauliflower when it’s cooked down & drained.
ahhhh, ty so fairly large chunks to begin wtih, then cook it and drain it, then measure it? correct?
Yup – it’s probably easiest to steam large chunks, if you’re microwaving you can chop it smaller so it cooks faster. Measure after cooking 🙂
tyty!!! My husband just recently was diagnosed with an auto-immune issue and was also told to stay away from dairy and I know he is missing his cheese, so I can’t wait to try this out for him!!! Thanks again!
You’re welcome! I hope your husband feels better, good luck to both of you on the health journey!
Could you use riced cauliflower? I have a bunch in the freezer waiting to be used.
You definitely can! In fact that’s probably easiest since you don’t have to cut it up/process it as much.
This recipe is pure alchemy!!!
I am sensitive to coconut. Do you have recommendations that will still allow this recipe work?
Hi Sheila – and yes – I’m actually sensitive to coconut too and it’s just in this recipe to add extra creaminess & help the cheese solidify, so you could take it out and substitute with a different fat (i.e. replace the coconut milk with water or another milk you can tolerate, and sub the coconut oil/cream with a different fat (ideally one that is solid at room temperature, like lard, but you could also use olive or avocado oil – you might want to up the gelatin in that case to 4 tb to ensure solidity). Hope you get to try it!
This looks amazing, Julie! I’m definitely making this later this summer after I finish travelling. And, by the way, those wacky cheese connoisseur mice had me giggling to myself. 🙂
Where are you traveling?! And hehe, I knew this story had to be about mice (nothing else would have seemed fitting 😉 )
Can you freeze this in smaller chunks? I’m afraid it would go bad before I could eat it all.
Yes you can – you can also make a smaller batch which you can eat over a few days.
Thank you so much Julie, I’ve been missing cheese and have tried others that just didn’t ‘cut it’ (no pun intended). So can’t wait to try this.
My pleasure Louise, hope this one cuts it! 😉
I can’t have any starches, any recommendations?
You can just omit the tapioca/arrowroot entirely, it’s not essential (just aids texture) – cauliflower is pretty low starch, can you have it?
Thank you! Yes I can have Cauliflower. I’m on the SIBO diet so no grains, gums, dairy, etc.
Anyone try substituting agar for gelatin to veganize this?
THX!
How long does this last in fridge?
I would recommend wrapping it well and eating within a week – or freeze whatever you don’t think you can get through in a few days, it’s pretty easy to defrost (and grates better cold).
Thank you, thank you, thank you! This is an amazing and very forgiving recipe. I made the full recipe, but divided it at the end to put half directly into the fridge, and the other half to cook first, then fridge. Well, I love them both. I am making a pizza tomorrow with your cassava bread recipe (another of my favorite recipes, btw) as the crust, and I will leave a comment under that page to let you know which cheese I prefer on it. AIP simply doesn’t feel very restrictive anymore. Woot!
Thanks so much Tiffany! So happy you tried the recipe and that it worked out (both ways) 😉 I’m actually in the midst of developing another AIP ‘cheese’ recipe this week (a ‘mozzo’ style cheese that will hopefully be even better for pizza), look forward to sharing that one with you soon! ♡
If I baked it. How long at what temperature? And how much should you add to your crackers recipe? Any other ideas on what to do with it? My kids are this diet too because of their issues. I might make fish crackers for my 3 year old…
Hi Kristine – I haven’t tried baking it, just heated it stovetop long enough to cook the tapioca/arrowroot starch. I imagine you could bake it but it wouldn’t solidify until you stuck it in the fridge because of the gelatin and solid-at-room-temp fats (coconut oil, etc.). For crackers, I just ate them together (made cheese & cracker sandwiches), didn’t add it directly to the cracker mixture before baking, although you could always try doing that if you want to make goldfish or cheesy crackers. If you did do that, you could try adding a 1/3 cup grated cheese to the cracker recipe and see how that works out (you might be able to reduce the lard component in the crackers slightly).
Any way this could be done without nutritional yeast?
Yes, you can just omit it (in fact I’m working on two other cheese recipes (cream and mozzarella) and both use this template minus nutritional yeast).
I have to say, you absolutely made my day! What a wonderful story and recipe!
Aw thanks Lenara! Your comment makes MY day! 😉
Loved this to make “grilled cheese sandwiches”! Although my kids were disappointed the “bread” was zucchini frittatas! Lol. Once this is set from refrigeration/freezing, do you think it would still work well as a cheesy “sauce” if I melted a portion? I’m thinking to drizzle over broccoli or GF pasta?
Thanks!
I don’t see why not! Yes I often melt or heat up a portion and one time used it to make spinach artichoke dip, so it should work as a cheesy sauce as well.
I have a question about blooming gelatin. Should the coconut milk be hot, cold or room temperature for that step? Thank you!!
I’d go with room temperature or cold.
All I know is that you’re just too cute. You’re so talented, with full of great stories to tell and amazing recipes to share.
You’re so adorable. 5 stars for cute, and talented!!!
Hi, this looks delicious. Does the gelatin need to be in the recipe? Thank you
You can omit it (or sub agar-agar), but it does help the cheese stay together/solidify, so you may need some additional binder like tapioca starch or more solid fat (e.g. ghee, coconut oil) that will solidify in the fridge.