Cashews are perfect for “non-dairy” products. They are easy to blend into smooth texture and they have nice soft taste. Few minutes and cream is ready.
It can be used instead of butter, as sour cream (by adding lemon juice) or on top of dessert. If you add more water you can make a cream and also cashew milk by achieving more liquid consistency.
MAIN INGREDIENTS:
Cashews – pre-soaked for 1-2h
Filtered water and Salt
For cheese: 1 cup of cashews, 1/4 cup of water, dash of sea salt +1 tsp of apple vinegar, 1 tsp of lemon juice, black pepper, garlic powder, 2 tbsp of nutritional yeast
There are many ways how to flavor your cheese before you place it in the fridge for a week. You can make it sweet or savory, or just leave the original taste.
What preservatives can you use for different cheese flavors?
Ideas for savory cheese:
Hempseeds and rosemary, lemon and dill, coriander seeds, garlic, sun-dried tomatoes, olives, truffles, herbs and nutritional yeast.
Ideas for dessert cheese:
Cranberries and cinnamon, pumpkin seeds and dried apricots, vanilla and coconut, cacao and honey.
FERMENTATION
You can skip fermentation and enjoy your cream cheese, but if you would like to go through all the process, you will no be disappointed with the result.
Fermentation is essentially one of the oldest forms of food preservation and is natural process of “good” bacteria growth in foods.
What are probiotics? Probiotics are these “good” bacterias, which participates in food fermentation.
Probiotics are live microorganisms which when administered in adequate amounts confer a health benefit on the host. According to research, probiotics can help with health conditions that involve your gastrointestinal system and other parts of your body. This leads to health benefits and reduces illness. Probiotics can also help your body produce needed vitamins and recover after using antibiotics. “Friendly” bacteria such as Lactobacillus can help us break down food, absorb nutrients, and fight off “unfriendly” organisms that might cause diseases such as diarrhea. But probiotics advantages are not still fully proven and we also have to consider that probiotics can be harmful for people with health issues (for example, weakened immune systems).
FERMENTATION WITH PROBIOTIC SUPPLEMENTS
One of the way to make fermented food at home is to use probiotic sold as dietary supplement.
How to use it for cheese fermentation?
Step 1:
Make cashew cheese using proportions given in the recipe above. Add 2 pills of probiotic to your cashew blend and mix it well. If the pills you have got are not capsuled, pulverize the pills before to mix it in the cheese.
Step 2:
Place the mix in a glass jar and cover the cheese with thin layer of any oil. Cover the jar with some tissue on top, so it can breath and will not explode since it can go up a bit due to bacteria activity. Keep it in room temperature for 3 days.
Step 3:
3 days later. Mix your cheese with any preservatives by your choice, form the shape you like and place in breathing material like baking sheet or fabric, or even container with air access. Keep in the fridge another 5-7 days.
Watch all the process:
Note! When buying probiotics supplement for cheese fermentation, consider that most cheeses are made with starter bacteria from the Lactococcus, Lactobacillus, or Streptococcus families.
I don’t have prescription, which probiotics are better to use. Please check in your local pharmacy which are available in the store.
If you are looking for the hard cheese recipe, so you can go through the same process, but skip adding water or add a minimal amount. Consider that you will need powerful blender in order to blend the nuts into pure butter.
As the result you will get sliceable cheese, which can be even one month aged at home stored in cool place. I usually keep it in the fridge enjoying slice by slice during all the aging period.
GINGER BITE 
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