CHEESE made from NUTS

The Secret Almond Mission was my newest and (weirdest?) project yet. I turned Almonds into Cheese.

The first step was to soak the almonds for 12-24 hours, and then take the skins off. See the result here.

The second step was to blend the almonds in the blender with 1 clove of garlic, a few turns of the Himalayan salt grinder, repeated with the pepper grinder, and enough water to blend. Next, I added 1 packet of probiotics and stirred it in (for some reason I feel like I would have killed the bacteria if I blended it—I don’t know if that’s true or not!). This phase is kind of smooshy and not delicious looking!

Step 3 was to line a mesh strainer with cheesecloth, put the goop into it, and put something heavy on it to press out the liquid.

The pic above is before I covered it with the cheese cloth and pressed out the liquid.
The pic below is after the liquid drained out through the strainer into the container beneath it.

After this contraption sat on the counter for 12-16 hours, I dumped it out of the cheesecloth into a dish, spread it around…and tasted it. I know it looks lumpy, but the texture is very light and fluffy—almost like whipped butter, but just a little denser.  Maybe like whipped cream cheese?

Here’s my assessment:

1. I like the idea of having cultured nut cheese instead of dairy because I like variety, and I like to make cheesy stuff for my vegan and dairy sensitive friends!

2. It tasted good, except one thing—I only had lemon-flavored probiotics and took a chance that the cheese would have a creamy lemon flavor. It did. That background taste was slightly….weird. Next time, I would be sure to use plain probiotics.

3. I tasted it on celery—yum!  I tasted it on a cucumber slice—yum! I ate a spoonful of it—yum!.

I thought adding different herbs and stuff might add some variety in flavor, so I dumped some dried dill seeds on a scoop of it (because I’m impulsive and that’s what I had within reach!). This was great!  Guilt-free, plant-based, probiotic cheese!!  I’d also like to attempt one that’s more like Dr-Cow’s cheese, where it is aged (or probably pressed) to the point of being slice-able.

I love cheese.

What would you add to your cheese?