Kite Hill Plain Almond Milk Cream Cheese

I’ve been unable to find an acceptable dairy-free cream cheese. This one, made by Kite Hill, uses almond milk, and although I wouldn’t call it inedible, it’s not good. A long time ago I tried their chive cream cheese and gave it a somewhat positive review. So it’s surprising how much I disliked the plain version.

First I tasted it straight up — the best test for any dairy-free alternative. There was nothing to mask its pasty texture and odd, artificial aftertaste. Thankfully, it has no detectable almond flavor, but it also lacks the sharpness that is the hallmark of cream cheese. Overall, epic fail.

Spread on a toasted poppy seed bagel, Kite Hill Almond Milk Cream Cheese was slightly more tolerable. Still, I could only stomach a few bites before deciding it wasn’t worth the calories.

Now, re-reading my review of their chive cream cheese, I realize that even though I didn’t hate it at the time, I never bought it again. So there you go.

The search for a decent dairy-free cream cheese continues…

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Tofutti Better Than Sour Cream

Sour cream is one of the extras I learned to live without when I went dairy-free. I used to put it on baked potatoes, nachos, quesadillas… and the tanginess and cooling quality of the sour cream were a nice finishing touch. But even with the plethora of dairy-free alternatives available today, it’s been hard to find dairy-free sour creams.

Tofutti Better Than Sour Cream is one of the few I’ve seen. As the name suggests, it contains tofu, so it’s not suitable for those who can’t eat soy. But that’s a moot point, because no one should be eating this stuff — it’s terrible.

As you can see in the photo above, it looks like the putty you use for spackling. Good thing I tasted it before actually putting it on my food. It wasn’t sour or creamy — in fact, it had no resemblance to sour cream at all. It was pasty and just tasted odd.

Tofutti is one of the older brands of dairy-free products; I remember seeing Tofutti Cuties — soy-based ice cream sandwiches — back in the early 2000s. But they’ve been lapped by newer brands with better food science. Unfortunately, I haven’t yet found any that make a good imitation sour cream. If I ever do, you’ll be the first to know.

Star Wars Blue Milk at Galaxy’s Edge in Disneyland

As soon as I read that the “Blue Milk” at Galaxy’s Edge — the new(ish) Star Wars-themed section of Disneyland — was dairy-free, I knew I’d be reviewing it for my blog. I was fortunate enough to visit the Happiest Place on Earth last week and finally saw Galaxy’s Edge for myself. Since this is a food blog, not an amusement park blog, I won’t say much about Galaxy’s Edge itself, except that overall it was underwhelming. Not bad… just not as amazing as it could be. And the same could be said about the Blue Milk.

That azure concoction that Luke Skywalker drank in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope — or as we Gen-Xers call it, just plain old Star Wars — was the inspiration for this beverage, sold at a vendor simply called the Milk Stand. But don’t look for a sign that says “Milk Stand,” because just about every sign in Galaxy’s Edge (other than the one for restrooms) is written in an alien language.

In addition to Blue Milk, you can also get Green Milk, but I didn’t try that one. I have heard, though, that the Green Milk tastes fairly foul.

Both beverages are dairy-free, vegan, and made from a blend of coconut and rice milks. Blue Milk has the consistency of a smoothie and tastes sort of like a piña colada, minus the rum. But it’s not as sweet, and it has a slightly oily mouthfeel. This might be because — as I found out later from this great blog post on WDW News Today — the drink contains coconut oil.

This is not what I would’ve envisioned for Blue Milk. If it were up to me, I would’ve made this a blue raspberry-flavored milkshake. (We all know there’s no such thing as a “blue raspberry,” but this mythical flavor is now what we expect when we see a blue beverage.) They could offer a regular Blue Milk, made with cow’s milk, and a vegan Blue Milk, made with full-fat coconut milk.

And finally, they need to dispense these beverages not from industrial spigots like the kind used for Slurpees, but poured by hand from a futuristic Tupperware pitcher, as Luke’s Aunt Beru did. Either that, or squeezed from the udder of an animatronic Bantha.

All my criticisms notwithstanding, I drank my entire cup of Blue Milk. Several hours later, I had the kind of gastrointestinal distress you really don’t want to have at an amusement park. Now, I can’t say whether this was from the Blue Milk or the twelve other gut-bomb-inducing snacks I consumed that afternoon. But it was bad enough to make me think twice about getting Blue Milk again.

If you do decide to try it, may the Force be with you.