cooking plant-based naturally requires you to be a bit more creative in the kitchen. but as a foodie, i love the challenge. what's really helped me is the discovery of a few staples that become the base of countless dishes, both sweet and savoury.
the first one i want to share with you is one of my favourites, cashew creme. it's rich, velvety and delicately sweet, it's a wonderful substitute for dairy, and it's only made with two ingredients, cashews and water. it seems a bit much to call this a recipe (given how simple it is) but nevertheless, this is how i like to make cashew creme.
ingredients:
~ 2 cups raw cashews
~ fresh water
method:
~ soak cashews in plenty of water for at least three hours. (this softens them up and makes them easy to blend.)
~ drain and rinse
~ blend with 1 cup of water (i tend to start with a ratio of 2:1 for cashews to water, just because it makes life easy) then add water gradually until desired consistency is reached.
notes:
~ this will make about a mason jar of cashew creme and will last around 4 days in the fridge (when it starts to taste a little tart, it's time to make a new batch). give it a quick stir before you use it each time. also, you really do need a high-powered blender to get a velvety texture like this. it was always bitty with my old blender, but now i have a vitamix it's so gorgeously smooth.