Sun Dried Tomato Nut Cheeze - Raw Cashews and Sunflower Seeds

This morning I decided that I wanted to make another raw meal tonight. Looking through my raw books I decided on raw pizza. Right after breakfast I started soaking the cashew and sunflower seeds for the raw cheeze. Since I wanted to be able to spread the cheeze on a crust I intentionally made this cheeze thinner and more spreadable than the last batch.

I had to sample a bit of the cheese on raw red pepper today so I could share the recipe with you. I suffer so that I can share with you. ;) If you believe that I have a bridge to sell. Here is the cheeze I made this afternoon.

Sun Dried Tomato Nut Cheeze - Raw Cashews and Sunflower Seeds
Makes 8 – 2 ounce servings

Ingredients:

1 cup raw cashews
1 cup raw sunflower seeds
1 lemon, zested and juiced
2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
½ tablespoon yellow miso
1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon oregano
5 sun-dried tomatoes, finely diced
Water, as necessary
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Cover the nuts and seeds with water and allow them to soak for 4 hours (overnight works too). Drain the nuts and seeds well and place them in your food processor. Add the lemon zest, lemon juice, garlic, miso, nutritional yeast, oregano and process. Drizzle water into the processor until you like the texture of the cheeze.  You will probably need to stop the processor and scrape the sides once or twice.

Remove the cheeze from the processor and stir the sun-dried tomatoes into the mixture. Taste and adjust the salt and pepper as necessary.

Refrigerate until needed. Use as you would flavored ricotta or cream cheese.

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 182.98
Calories From Fat (70%) - 127.32

Total Fat - 14.85g
Saturated Fat - 1.94g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 68.87mg
Potassium - 222.36mg
Total Carbohydrates - 9.14g
Fiber - 2.73g
Sugar - 1.46g
Protein - 5.46g

Comments:

This cheeze is much thinner and will work better as a ricotta substitute on pizza. It would also be good on a wrap sandwich to hold the fillings in the flat bread. I like the addition of the sun-dried tomatoes in this cheeze. A few minced black olives would also be great in this cheeze. Even some capers or fresh herbs would work well in this cheeze.

Unrelated note:

Today has been much busier than normal. It probably wasn’t the best day to try something new like raw pizza. I hope to be back later with the other pizza components. So far it is a fairly simple process, but it does require making the cheeze, pizza crust and sun-dried tomato marinara. I can see how this would be a simple meal if you had the components prepared and waiting in the frig. I was wondering how I could send this with my hubby to have for lunch but I can’t come up with how he would warm it up other than to put it in a sunny window which doesn’t sound like the best idea to me. If anyone has an idea on this, other than a second dehydrator at his office, I would love to know.

For now I need to run and get a few things accomplished here before the snow starts again. We are expecting snow again in the next hour or so and I want to get home before it starts.