Easy Almond Cheese and Garden Goodness

Almond cheese?

Yeah, you heard that right.

Think about it.

You probably love almond butter and you probably love almond milk so why would the phenomenon of almond cheese surprise you?

Even after all that, I was skeptical too.

Could it really be that good? Could it even TASTE or LOOK like cheese? And what kind of work would this “cheese” entail?

Come hither my sweet Vegan babes… Mama’s got the scoop for you!

Easy Almond Cheese


This stuff is just SO good! It gives you a blank canvas to really have fun. I used almonds with fresh basil, garlic, Italian seasoning and sea salt. Next time I want to try making it with some jalapenos and cumin for a real nice pepper jack type of feel. Green onion, spinach, dill or any other fresh herb would be fantastic. You could most certainly leave it plain with just some salt and use it as a “cream cheese” on your morning bagel. It would also be amazing as a sandwich filling! You can use almost any kind of nut you prefer. Macadamia, pine, cashew…all great options!  I’m just so excited that I’ve found a thick creamy cheese substitute that’s not only all natural but DAIRY FREE! Yahoo!!!

Makes approx 8 servings

PPV: 3 for two tablespoons
Protein: 4 grams per two tablespoons

Ingredients:

1 cup raw almonds, soaked overnight then peeled*
1 bunch fresh basil
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1-3 cloves garlic
1/2 teaspoon sea salt plus more to taste
1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning

*Next time I will buy the already peeled raw slivers from the bulk foods section at the grocery store. The peeling of these took forever! It was totally worth it but if I can cut corners for the sake of time, why not?! I’m sure you can appreciate that too.

Directions:

Your soaked almonds should look something like this the morning after you soak them.

Almonds on steroids, right?

Then once you peel them, add them and all remaining ingredients to the food processor or blender and blend away!

You want to scrape down the sides as needed and keep blending until it gets as smooth as possible. Here’s the part where I wish I had a high powered blender like The Ninja or Vitamix. Anyone wanna send me one?? Message me and I’ll email you my mailing address! *wink* My food processor (and yours too for that matter!) will work just fine but it does take a bit longer.

Once it’s as smooth as you can get it, dump it into a cheese cloth lined mesh strainer.

Look at that cool green color from the fresh basil! Yum!

Wrap the cloth around it and press it slightly. Let it sit for a minimum of 4 hours in the fridge. It gets hard just like a cream cheese! You can easily spread it on crackers or on a sandwich. Talk about your perfect substitute for Laughing Cow cheese!

“WHOSE LAUGHING NOW, COW?!!!”

Sorry. I couldn’t help myself!

So now that you have this amazing cheese what are some OTHER ways you can use it??

I made stuffed mushrooms! I sauteed the stumps of some bella mushrooms with onion and garlic…

Then I re-stuffed the mushrooms with it and crumbled some of the cheese on top and baked them at 350 for about 20 minutes.

Before

After

I served them with some of my homemade cashew ranch dressing!

So excited by how much my family and I loved this stuff I decided to make Dr. Fuhrman’s No-Meat balls and put balls of cheese in the middle…Oh. M. Gee!! Pure genius!!

I cut Riley’s in half so you could see it. 

Yes… ketchup with everything.

And when I say my family loved it, I mean even the “little fella” as Riley calls him.

Nothing like little balls of almond-cheesy-no-guilt-goodness to make my boy giddy with glee!

Look at that face…*sigh*

Which reminds me… 

Do you remember our garden that we started around Easter? If not, here’s a refresher.

Here’s our garden NOW!!

The zucchini have taken over!! Had we known this we would have built a box twice this size. 

Note to self for next year!

So today we picked our very first zucchini. Well, I didn’t. My sweet blue eyed boy did.

There was the one he wanted…”The BIGGG one, Mom!”

He’s going in… 

Look at how cute he is!

And here he is with his prize! He said, “I’m not sure I like it but I’ll try it.”

Hahaha…

That’s all I can ask of him. To just try it. 

I know that by him helping with the care of our garden it will plant seeds of my own inside of him that will one day grow and turn HIM into a true veggie lover as well as a lover of the Earth 

and everything in it. 

Just the way our Father God designed us to be. 

I’m proud of that!

It’s good to be a mom.