“Pantry Items ” is a term used for staple cooking ingredients. Staple ingredients vary from cook to cook, kitchen to kitchen. The list can include olive oil, garlic, onion, lemons, parsley, you know…..things you always have in your kitchen. My list of staple items is a little different and it is a HUGE list! My pantry items include homemade pasta sauce, cashew milk, vegan cheese, vegan mayonnaise, pico de gallo, and tons more. I use these ingredients nearly every week in a recipe. My Weekend Pantry posts will show you how to make all of my staple ingredients from scratch. You can then use these ingredients in my other recipes. You can use the homemade vegan mayonnaise to make my Portobello Mushroom Sandwich with Basil-Dijon Mayo even healthier because you won’t be using store-bought processed mayo. You can use homemade vegan milk in my Mixed Berry Smoothie Recipe. Use homemade Pico De Gallo in my Chicken and Vegetable Tacos. Okay, I think you get the gist! Now for today’s Weekend Pantry Recipe.
I usually recommend cashew milk over any other vegan milk like almond milk, soy milk, rice milk, etc… When making these other milks you typically blend the nuts with water and then strain the liquid in order to remove small chunks of almonds, soy beans, rice, or whatever it is that you are using. When making cashew milk you don’t have to strain the milk!! That means less work for us and more yield! Why would I make any other type of vegan milk?!
Cashew milk is ridiculously easy to make. Take cashews and water. Blend. BAM. Done! Seriously, the hardest thing about making this milk is probably finding quality unroasted (is “unroasted” a real word because I’m getting the red squiggly line underneath it! Haha.), unsalted cashews. If i can’t get to my local health food store I will break down and buy the roasted cashews in the snack aisle from a regular grocery store, so don’t dismiss this recipe because you can’t find unroasted cashews! However, I don’t recommend buying the salted ones. I don’t recommend buying “salted” anything really because I like to control my salt.
To make the sweetened version of cashew milk all you have to do is add a ripe banana and a few dates to the unsweetened milk and blend. I would like to emphasize the word “ripe”. Ripe bananas should be yellow with lots of brown spots on the skin. I know most of us grew up thinking spotted bananas are no good, but that is completely untrue! Spotted bananas are the ripest, tastiest bananas you can eat. I haven’t eaten a plain yellow banana since I learned what a real ripe banana looks and tastes like. Please give it a try. You barely even taste the banana in this recipe. I solely add it for its natural sweetness.
I use unsweetened cashew milk if I’m making a creamy soup or stew. I like to add the milk at the end of the cooking process and simmer it for a few more minutes. This will give you the best, creamiest, soup ever! I use the cashew cream for recipes like my thick and creamy vegan cheese sauce (recipe coming soon). I also add a couple of dates and a little cinnamon & vanilla powder to the cream and have an instant sweet creamy frosting that I use on the rare occasions when I bake some vegan cupcakes or brownies. Cashew milk and cream so versatile I could write a book on all of its uses. But instead, I’ll go ahead and give you the recipe. I really hope you try it!
Cashew Cream
Ingredients
- 1 cup unroasted unsalted, cashews
- 1 cup water filtered if possible
Instructions
- Place the cashews and water in a blender. Blend until completely smooth, about 30 seconds to a minute depending on the type of blender you have. Pour into a container. This will last up to 5 days in the refrigerator.
Unsweetened Cashew Milk
Ingredients
- 1 cups unroasted unsalted, cashews
- 3 cups water filtered if possible
Instructions
- Place the cashews and water in a blender. Blend until completely smooth, about 30 seconds to a minute depending on the type of blender you have. Pour into a container. This will last up to 5 days in the refrigerator.
Sweet Cashew Milk
Ingredients
- 1 cup unrosted unsalted, cashews
- 4 cups water filtered if possible
- 3 - 6 dates depending on your sweetness preference
- 1 ripe banana
Instructions
- Place all of the ingredients in a blender. Blend until smooth, about 30 seconds to a minute depending on the type of blender you have. Pour into a container. This will last up to 5 days in the refrigerator.
Recipe Notes
Please note that the sweetened cashew milk may turn light brown after a few hours. This is not a problem. It happens because of the banana we blended in the milk. You know how bananas, apples, and other fruits turn brown after being peeled & sitting out for an hour or so? They're still good to eat, the change in color just happens when the air hits the fruit. So now worries if that happens, okay?!
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