Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Dairy Free Cashew Cheese

Ingredients:

1 cup Water

1/3 cup plus 1 rounded TBSP of Emes unflavored gelatin (do not use Agar)

1 1/4 cup boiling water

2 cups cashews

1/4 cup yeast flakes

1 TBSP salt

2 tsp onion powder

1/4 tsp garlic powder

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

1 pimento or 1 carrot grated or 2 tsp paprika

Directions:

Soak gelatin in the 1 cup of water in blender while assembling the other ingredients.  Pour the boiling water over soaked gelatin and whisk briefly to dissolve.  Cool slightly.  Add cashews and blend thoroughly while adding remaining ingredients.  Blend until mixture is the consistency of a cream sauce, with no pimento or carrot seen.  Pour into a quart mold, cool slightly.  Cover before refrigerating.  Refrigerate over night before serving.  After this firming period, it can be frozen.  This melts over hot dishes.  Leave out the gelatin for a fondue type of cheese. 

Makes one quart.

-----------------------------
This recipe came from my friend, Theresa.  She said that she couldn’t find the raw cashews that the recipe originally called for so she substituted roasted, salted ones.  She said it turned out fine and that her family liked it grated onto food in place of cheese.

I have not tried this recipe myself.  I am posting it for those who can’t have dairy products but like grated cheese on their food.  I hope it works out for you.  It’s worth a try.

As I mentioned, the original recipe called for raw cashews.  I changed this because I have heard that raw cashews are not safe to eat without a specific processing which was not included in this recipe.  If you wish to try them instead please find out the proper way to treat them before use so that they are safe to eat.

2 comments:

  1. We eat raw nuts all the time. I think the fear with some raw nuts is possibly in their storing and they can go rancid quicker...I'll have to google it. Thanks for sharing the unconventional recipes though...I think they are interesting.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Danielle, we eat some nuts raw too, I had just heard that cashews were not safe to eat raw and had to be processed first. However, in doing a search, which I probably should have done to begin with, I found that cashews sold as "raw" are not technically raw. They are steamed to release the poisons, though not roasted. So, apparently even cashews sold as raw are safe to eat as such because they have in fact been cooked. (Here is the site where I read a little about it: http://www.wisegeek.com/are-raw-cashews-really-poisonous.htm)
    Interestingly, cashews are not really nuts. They are seeds. :-)

    ReplyDelete