Renovations and Cashew cheese recipe…
Hello from renovation city !
The ‘little house’ is almost ready to camp in – just need to finish the bathroom floor, add shower, toilet, basin, tiles, door and we have a bathroom, my main requirement after a kitchen. Also need to finish laying the wooden floor in kitchen, stain and wax/varnish, add cupboards and woodburner…, oh, and put a sink in and we are fine there too. Put bed in and we are sorted, we can then continue from there 🙂
from this
to this
Right now we are back to putting the finishing touches on the main house for our holiday makers and retreaters this year and there are only, well, I stopped counting at 50 things to do so all on target (cue hysterical laughter).
and from this
to this
So lets forget it all for a minute and I will give you my Raw Cashew cheese recipe.
Blend until very smooth:
2 cups raw, unsalted, soaked cashews, 1 sachet probiotics, 1/4 cup plus 1 TBS water kefir
Put in a warm place or the dehydrator, wrapped in muslin or a nut milk bag (I use the latter) for about 36 hours, until it smells deliciously tangy.
Mix into it:
1 TBSP nutritional yeast, 1/2 tsp lemon juice, 1/2 tsp Umboshi vinigar (optional), 1/2 tsp smoked paprika, 1/4 tsp pink salt plus a pinch or two of tumeric for added colour if you want to. Mash it all up with a spatula or wooden spoon then push into two ring moulds set on a sheet of greaseproof paper.
Put them into the freezer for a couple of hours to set so that they are easy to push out of the molds then put the cheeses back into the dehydrater for 24 hours (skip this step if you do not have one) to form the rind.
Remove from dehydrater, leave to adjust to room temperature then wrap and put in the fridge for a few days to a few weeks to mature.
Et voila !
When you keep cheese it is important to check it from time to time to make sure no mould is growing on it. I wrap in greaseproof and then a piece of kitchen paper to absorb moisture and store in an airtight glass box, this works well for me.
Options:
Ignore the rind making bit and roll the cheese in herbs or crushed pepper corns or some dehydrated ‘caramelised’ onions or even chopped raisons.
Add some herbs at the flavouring stage instead of the smoked paprika.
Eat straight away ! The one in the photo was just out of the dehydrator after ‘rinding’ because I made two, one to eat then and there and one to mature which is still in the fridge.
Let me know how you get on?
Happy weekend, I am now off to sand a floor 🙂
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Little woman, me?
Well I am little physically, 5′ 1 1/2″ to be precise.
I don’t like being called short but small, petite and little are fine.
That is not the issue. It is far more sensitive than that.
Yesterday I mentioned to someone how much I have always wanted a certain type of stove, the one that warms the heart of the house.
They said something along the lines of “your husband will have a fit at the running costs”.
I groaned just typing that.
Why, is it assumed that I would not have a fit at the running costs, pay the running costs, be responsible for the running costs, finance the running costs?
We had friends to stay a while ago and took them on a petit tour and passed the hotel de ville. The lady said “Our husbands should buy us a place like that”.
Our car has been called my husbands car and our house has been called my husbands house. Even my businesses have been called my husbands businesses on quite a few occasions!
I once had a male printer who had made a complete hash of my brochure printing – they went from mainly blue through a few balanced coloured to mainly red and back again through thousands of brochures. It doesn’t matter what the brochures were showing really, bad printing is bad printing, but they were clothing so highly important that people saw correct colouring.
When I asked what he would do he said nothing, he didn’t need to see them and indicated I was making a big fuss and condescendingly suggested I had a little chat with my husband about it! Well, you can imagine.
Needless to say I (not my husband) did not pay him.
When I laughingly told my husband about yesterdays comment (it was by a lovely man who would probably be really embarrassed at how it sounded, or think I was ridiculous for taking it that way 😉 he asked me ‘Does it bother you from a significance or a sexual equality point of view?”.
Such a horribly and annoyingly reasonable question.
I do hate, after all these years in business, that being female can make you so insignificant in a business and financial world. I also dislike that I still care and need that significance.
I wish I could calmly rise above it and be content with my own knowledge of my achievements.
Or maybe I don’t. I want to be thought of as super woman, divine wife, perfect mother, great business woman and I want one of those oil guzzling stoves for ‘my’ kitchen.
Oh…
Husband, I need a new stove!
Our bread oven!