Rejuvelac cheese

This awesome recipe was taken from culturesforhealth.com. I have began making rejuvelac, and wanted to take it a step further with making more fermented products with it.. including cheese. This nut-based cheese is DELICIOUS.. I'm absolutely obsessed with it. It's a great creamy substitute for dairy-cheese but it's nut-based and healthy for you. It has all of the benefits of any fermented food including containing probiotics that help your gut maintain a healthy and happy supply of beneficial bacteria, and the enzymes to help you better digest your food. Roll this cheese into a log, cover the edges with herbs, use as a spread, or even freeze it and then grate it to make grated cheese. It takes a couple days for the full process (once you already have rejuvelac made up) but I promise it's SOO worth it!




Ingredients:

2 cups cashews
½ cup rejuvelac
dash of sea salt
teaspoon of kelp (optional, but this REALLY helps develop a cheesy taste)
dried herbs or pepper to coat (optional)

Directions:

Cover the cashews with water and soak overnight. Drain off the water.

Place cashews in a food processor or blender and process with rejuvalac until smooth. You can add some salt if you want (without salt it will be slightly sweet).

Line a strainer with 2 layers of cheesecloth or a nut bag. Spoon the mixture on the cloth or into the bag. Sit in a warm place for 24-48 hours and allow to ferment.

Form the cheese into rounds or logs and coat with herbs. Or you can scoop it into a dish and use it as a spread. Refrigerate to solidify. It will stay fresh in the fridge for about a week. Enjoy!

Here is my most recent batch below (not a pretty picture as I took the picture as the log was already dug into and eaten!) but it was delicious! Straining your cheese in a nut bag first, then forming a log and wrapping in wax paper before leaving out to ferment will result in a dry, crumbly cheese.



Not straining it first but leaving it to drip from a nut bag as it sets in a colander (shown below) will result in a creamier cheese spread.



Basically your edges that are exposed to the air through the nut bag, cheese cloth, or wax paper will become drier like a cheese casing but completely edible and delicious. Any parts within the outer layer will be creamy. Increase your surface area and decrease the inner area with the shape (such as a log) to get a firmer cheese.

Here is a flax seed log I made, same recipe but using ground flax instead of soaked cashews. This log came out amazing consistency wise and the "cheese" was pretty good but it does not really taste like cheese compared to the cashews which resemble cheese really well. Still a great, hearty, and flavorful fermented product to enjoy.