Happiness comes in many forms: grated, sliced, diced and melted.

Yes, I’m obviously talking about cheese, because today I want to talk about good stuff. Cheese stuff! Because this is the first time I ever make my own cheese board with own made cheese! I have made this cheese once before, in natural flavor, and it turned out so good that I thought it was about time to make it again. As a result we have a completely vegan cheese board with various side ingredients.

What does my cheese board consists of?

On this cheese board we have my vegan cheese in two flavors, peanuts, organic vegan dark chocolate in two flavors, orange wedges organic dried figs, sesame- and lin seeds crackers, raw goji berries and pears from our garden. Serve it with a little bit of wine (preferably alcohol free. There are so many delicious options out there!), invite your friends, family and/or girl or boy friend to come over, and just enjoy!

What can you flavor your cheese with?

So I have made this vegan cheese once before in natural flavor. This time I made the cheese flavored in two different kinds of ways; with parsley garlic, and sea salt with mushroom flavor. You can really flavor the cheese in optional kind of way. Take for instance inspiration from other flavored cheeses in store and test to see which one becomes your personal favorite.

What is the texture of the cheese?

If you have never made vegan cheese before by yourself, the texture reminds of a thicker creme cheese or chèvre. It’s really creamy and delicious.

Vegan cashew cheese

Makes one big cheese or two smaller ones like I have in the picture.

INGREDIENTS:

250 g cashews

1 tbsp coconut oil

1/3 dl water

the juice from a ½ lemon

zest of lemon

1 tsp nutritional yeast (can be excluded)

a pinch of salt and black pepper

+ optional flavoring if you'd like*

HOW TO MAKE:

Soak your cashews in water for at least 3 hours, but preferably over night.

Pour away the water and mix your soaked cashews until they creamy. Add the remaining ingredients. Keep mixing, often a few minutes depending on the blender, until it has become a creamy, lump free cream.

Flavor the cream if you'd like with for instance garlic, parsley, rosemary or other. If you'd like you can make different kinds of flavors, for instance two different flavors like I did, of one batch.

Place plastic wrap over a quite small bowl. Let the wrap hang approx 4-5 cm over the edge and thereafter use a spatula to scoop all the cheese over the plastic wrap. Then gather the corners and twist the top gently to form the cheese into a "ball". Place the "ball" in the bowl and place the bowl in the fridge.

Let the cheese rest for about 2 hours (over night works too) and then serve it on your cheese board or on top of homemade seed crackers.

NOTES:

• Flavoring could for instance be pressed garlic and parsley, nutritional yeast, sea salt, sun dried tomatoes or other. Otherwise you can keep your cheese entirely naturell flavor or flavor with your own personal favorite flavor.