Creative Cashew Cheese, Tomato, Basil and Watercress

Creative Cashew Cheese, Tomato, Basil and Watercress

The vegan cheese in this dish isn’t the easiest to make, but it is absolutely worth it. With it we’ve got this wonderful caprese dish, which is fresh, titillating and full of honest flavors, in the way only the Italian kitchen ever seems to be able to manage. So what am I saying? It’s never the easy things you remember and this is a dish you won’t soon forget.

Preparation time:

30 minutes

Cooking time:

0 minutes (needs 28 hours to culture)

Serves: 4

Nutrition Facts Per Serving

Calories 403
Protein 25.3 g
Cholesterol 0 mg
Fat 44.8 g
Carbohydrates 89.3 g
Fiber 7.7 g
Sodium 1244 mg

Ingredients

• 2 French baguettes, split lengthwise and cut in half crosswise.

• 3-4 large roma tomatoes, sliced ¼ inch thick Sea Salt & Freshly ground black pepper Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg Fresh basil

• 1/2 teaspoon white pepper Basil oil for drizzling

• 2 cups whole raw cashews

• 1 cup watercress

• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon

• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives

• 2 tablespoons of olive oil

• 1 tablespoon of chopped basil

• 1 tablespoon nutritional yeast flakes

• 1 tablespoon onion powder

• 1 teaspoon probiotic

• 1 teaspoon sea salt

Directions

• First, you need to make the cashew cheese. To do this, put the cashews in a bowl and put in enough cold water that they’re covered. Put a lid on the bowl and refrigerate them for anywhere from 12 to 14 hours.

• Combine 2 tablespoons of water with the probiotic powder mix it up until the resulting mixture is smooth. Put the nuts in a blender, along with the mixture you just made and blend the result on high for several minutes. Stop every little bit of time to scrape the nuts off the side, so that no chunks are left over. You want the mixture to be smooth. Take a sieve and apply three layers of rinsed and squeezed cheesecloth to the inside, making sure there’s plenty of overhang over the edges. Set this into a bowl then take the mixture from the blender and pour it inside.

• Take the excess cheesecloth, collect it together, seal it and squeeze the mixture down through the cheesecloth and the sieve.

• Put some heavy objects onto the cloth (cans will work) and leave it in a warm place for 14 to 16 hours. This will allow the cheese to culture.

• Afterward, put the cheese in a medium bowl.

• Add the onion powder, nutritional yeast, white pepper, nutmeg and salt, while mixing. When it’s all mixed together, take a sheet of parchment paper and scoop the mixture into the middle of it. Carefully, roll the paper so that you ve got a 2-inch diameter log. This goes into the refrigerator for at least several hours but preferably overnight. It will turn firm.

• Spread the herbs and pepper onto a tray, take the log, unwrap it and then roll it in the mixture of herbs, so that the surface is coated. Cut the log into thin slices, about 1/4 of an inch across.

• Take our baguettes, slice them in half and put your watercress on the bottom half. Take the basil oil and drizzle it over the cress, then add tomato, season it with salt and pepper, and finally add a slice of the

• cheese. Put the other half of the baguette on top and serve immediately (otherwise you’ll lose the baguette’s crispiness).