Vegan Fondue

The weather has been absolutely amazing for the last two days. I have found it very hard to resist and haven’t spent much time cooking so I didn’t want to bother you with my boring “single lady” meals. However Dan got home very late last night. This meant I needed to make a proper dinner tonight. I considered quite a few things and finally decided fondue would be fun. This is something I haven’t made since we became vegan, but surprisingly it was very easy and tasty. I have no idea why I didn’t do this sooner. Here is what I made:

Vegan Fondue
Makes 6 generous servings (approximately ½ cup each)

Ingredients:

½ cup dry oats, processed into oat flour in your blender
½ cup raw cashews (soaked for 2 hours and drained if not using a high powered blender)
2 ½ cups of water (1 cup reserved to “clean out the blender”)
2 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast, or to taste
¼ cup onion, peeled and minced
½ tablespoon Dijon mustard
salt and pepper, to taste (use truffle salt if you have it)

Directions:

Combine everything but the 1 cup of reserved water in your blender and process until smooth. Pour into a pan and simmer. Place the reserved cup of water in your blender and use it to clean out the blender jar. Add that to the pot as well. Cook until the sauce is the thickness you desire and the raw onion and garlic flavor has been cooked out.

Serve with any veggies you like. I steamed some small new potatoes to dip into the fondue. We also had chunks of raw red bell pepper, snow peas, broccoli and cherry tomatoes tonight.

Potato cooking note: I cook my potatoes whole, either in the microwave or by steaming since reading that they lose more nutrition when cooked cut or in water.

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 82.74
Calories From Fat (44%) - 36.11

Total Fat - 3.71g
Saturated Fat - 0.66g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 20.2mg
Potassium - 96.01mg
Total Carbohydrates - 8.32g
Fiber - 1.23g
Sugar - 0.8g
Protein - 2.39g

Comments:

This is very similar to my queso dip only without the Mexican seasonings. You can use this for a mild white cheese sauce over veggies and rice and it would great that way. I use the base as a replacement for Mornay sauce.  The overall flavor is mild, no distinctive mustard or nutritional yeast taste. I was going for an overall mild cheese flavor like a Gruyere.

Quick Product Review: Crunch Bar by Mareblu Naturals:

For Dan’s trip I picked up granola bars from Mareblu Naturals at Costco. The ingredient list was what tempted me. Each bar only has 6 grams of sugar. Dan took a few blueberry bars on this trip and liked them. Today I had a strawberry and pomegranate bar and that was good too. Assuming Costco continues to carry this they will be a regular part of our pantry for times when we are out of the house. As usual, this is something we purchased it was not sent to me to review. ;-)

Where have I been recently?:

The weather has been unseasonably gorgeous. It was been very hard for me to focus on my typical activities. ;-) The cooler than normal temperatures and light breezes make it feel like spring at our place. I have been taking advantage of the lovely weather to get a little natural vitamin D. I know that summer and air conditioning will be returning soon and wanted to enjoy this weather while it lasted.

Additionally I have been playing with the new sewing machine and may have reawakened my fondness for sewing. I have been shocked by how much of a difference a new sewing machine made to the process. Sewing has been something that I have always done for the house. I have made curtains, roman blinds, pillow covers, gift bags, that sort of thing. Over the last few days I made an eye mask (to increase our melatonin production) and cotton flannel baby wipes. I am on a campaign to get rid of as many disposables and things that have been bleached at our house as possible. Next on my list is getting rid of plastic bags. That will take a lot more work, but I am determined. I will let you know what I come up with. There are a few ideas swirling around my head now. ;-)

After watching the 2010 Dr. Greger DVD melatonin was fresh on my mind. Then reading about it again in “Integrative Oncology” I felt as though that was a sign. Instead of trying to blackout the windows in the bedroom and covering the alarm clocks I decided an eye mask was a much easier and quicker solution. We will see if it works as well in practice and it does in my head. ;-)

Since my foray back into sewing has been going so well I may make a summer blanket next week. I have some red and white toile that I bought not knowing what to make with it. Now I think I have a use for it. We will see what happens since I have a tendency to change my mind a few times before I commit to things.

Talk to you again tomorrow.