eat; cashew cheese spread

picasaweb.google.com

So I'm back in Melbourne, Australia for a few months and yes, I've been subjected to my mums Italian cooking all week, throwing my raw endeavors out the window. But not for long!  I mean seriously, I haven't eaten her cooking in over a year and am allowing myself the pleasure for a while. I do intend to post some of her amazingness as soon as I get a hold of my own great camera. Time to start saving!

While in The States, I purchased my second raw cookbook, The Raw 50 by Carol Alt and decided to start with the super easy cashew cheese recipe. This makes a great spread for sandwiches, or a yummy dip for a big bowl of raw vegies and is super easy to make! I watered it down and added a little olive oil using it as a 'sauce' for a raw zucchini pasta...yum! Divide the mixture in two and add sun dried tomatoes to the second half for something different. I also added liquid smoke to the sun dried tomato dip for a more intense flavour.

What you need;

2 cups raw cashews, soaked for four hours

1/2 cup of filtered water

1 yellow bell pepper

5 tbs lemon juice

small handful of fresh parsley

1 1/2 tsp dried basil

2 heaped Tbs Nutritional yeast

1 garlic clove

1 shallot

salt and pepper to taste

Sun Dried Tomato Chashew Cheese

1/3 cup sundried tomato

Drain the nuts and dry with a kitchen towel. Roughly chop bell pepper, parsley, garlic and shallot.

Throw everything into your food processor and whiz away until you get a creamy consistency. If you are wanting to try the sun dried tomato version, simply divide the mixture, leaving the half in the food processor and add the sun dried tomatoes. Whiz until combined.

The one on the left is the cashew cheese spread that I watered down for a saucy constancy and the one on the right is the sun dried tomato flavour. Both are yum!!!

Bon Appetito!