Cashew Cheese + Lemon Balm Burritos
Hey everyone! Here is my second latin inspired dish and for this one, I wanted to do a spin on a burrito. Now technically I don't know what you would call this, it's a wrap and I know traditionally burritos have rice or a grain in them, I just liked the alliteration so let a bitch live, teeeheeeee!
So for this dish I wanted to bring a fresh, summery wrap that is to die for in the sunshine. It is really tangy and delicious with all the individual components but keeps that warming flavour of a comfort food dish. I also wanted to show how to make a completely vegan cheese as I think it's such a simple recipe to do and if you mix it with some garlic, is undeniably yummy.
Ingredients
Purple Salad Onions
Melon Squash
Lemon Balm
Lime
Tender Stem Brocolli
Vegan Sausage
Red Cabbage
Cashews
Almond Milk
Smokey Paprika
Onion Salt
Garlic Salt
Easy Chop Garlic (in Vinegar)
Yeast
Tortillas
Right so let's start with the cheese! This is the base of most nut cheeses and the way I do it, is I soak some cashews over night in some almond milk. This softens the nuts enough that they blend into a very soft paste, but almond also takes away the odd after taste of cashews you can get sometimes. They sometimes have a like bitter after flavour that the almond milk can help with.
You blend them with a hand blender, keep going as you'll miss some bits. In a pan, grab some regular activated yeast. You need to roast this over a high heat until it deactivates and this is basically what nutritional yeast is. It's not exactly the same, but it creates a flavour that can substitute parmesan? So make sure it changes colour and browns otherwise it won't work.
Next, pass the blended nuts through a sieve into a bowl, add some garlic salt, about a teaspoon. Same again with onion salt and a teaspoon of the yeast. Taste it now, because you might go over the top with the salt. Then add some ready chopped garlic in vinegar, the vinegar cuts through the saltiness and the garlic gives it a kick. It's basically like the easiest garlic dip ever. Now if you want this to set as cheese, you simply combine with vegan gelatine. You can also use other ingredients but it's pretty easy to have it like a humus texture for this one so just treat it like a dip.
Next in a dish I added some melon squash, I think this is called melon squash but it's basically like a butternut squash with stripes that smells like a melon lol! It cooks out way quicker and you don't need to faff with the boiling. Then some fresh purple salad onions, some broccoli, a white onion and some coconut oil. I grabbed some Linda Mccartney sausages and quickly threw them in the oven and prepared some red cabbage into thin strips.
Now I am a huge fan of herbs and we grow a lot in our family garden, lemon balm is one of my favourite for so many reasons because it has a lot a topical uses in cosmetics, it can be used as an astringent, you can create an anti viral tincture in alcohol or whatever. It's great for cold sores or treating colic. It's also a mild lemon taste and adds an extra layer to any fresh summery meals. Apaz you can have fish but who knows.
I threw some paprika and some seasoning, just salt and pepper into the diced sausages, roasted them off until they had a crisp on them and cooked out the vegetables together. Set aside to serve.
I roasted some tortillas, got some of the lemon balm and a lime and here we go!
So here is my summery lemon balm burritos, you can make some delicious rice to add with it and make it more of a full dish or serve as is for a fresh and tastyyyyyyy moment. We live for the moments.
Let me know if you try these out and don't forget to leave your feedback!
Joe
