FR-ACHOS WITH VEGAN CHEESE AND SOUR CREAM

Years before I was vegan, I was head over heels for gooey cheesy nachos anytime, anywhere. Once I became vegetarian I was still able to enjoy nachos, but just without meat. Then, after I became vegan everything changed. Not until I discovered packaged vegan cheeses (ones that I actually liked) was I able to enjoy nachos again! But vegan packaged cheeses are obviously processed and now I am at a point in my health journey where I feel like I should make the plunge to cook a healthy plant based cheese from scratch.

This simple but healthy vegan cheese sauce recipe has really blown my mind to the point where I have to make it at least once a month! Online there are so many similar recipes to this one, but the sour cream recipe I created myself, because I haven't really seen other vegan sour cream recipes that I think I would care for.

Considering that I literally would live off of fries if that were the only food I would be forced to live off of for the rest of my life, I find fries very appropriate! This is also a completely guilt free paleo way to enjoy nachos.

[Serves 2-3 people]

FRIES

--- Ingredients ---

2 medium to large potatoes of your choice

3/4 to 1 tablespoon of coconut oil or oil of your choice

Step 1 ---

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Then rinse and cut the potatoes into the fry shapes you would like. Afterwards toss them in a large bowl with the oil. If you use coconut oil, make sure it is melted before adding to the bowl.

Step 2 ---

Lay the fries out evenly on one to two flat baking pans. They will shrink so don't worry if the fries are close together. Depending on your oven they will probably take about 25-30 minutes to get golden brown. So make sure to check on them every 8 minutes or so. I don't ever flip my fries around, because I like when some of the sides of the fries are more crispy than others, but if you prefer for them to be evenly cooked, then you may flip them with a spatula 10 minutes into the cooking time. Just keep in mind if the fries are still soft and you try to flip them and therefore push them off of the bottom of the pan when they're a little stuck, they might break apart. Even if they look like they might end up sticking to the pan during the cooking time, they most likely will be easy to scrape off from the bottom when they're done. You'll notice what I mean once they're done cooking. Your best bet is to leave them be the entire time they are cooking so you don't crush the fries trying to flip them. They are fragile!

CHEESE SAUCE

--- Ingredients ---

2 cups of russet potatoes

1 cup carrots

1 cup flavorful veggies like garlic, shallot, red and yellow onion

1 teaspoon white miso paste

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

3/4 cup soaked cashews

2 teaspoons of turmeric powder

Step 1 ----

First roughly cut the potatoes and carrots into medium sized pieces and boil them in a pot of 5 cups of water on medium heat. You can use any potato except purple, because you want an orange color for the cheese. Five minutes into the cooking time add the cup of flavorful veggies like onion and garlic (make sure the garlic has its skins removed). These veggies can be roughly chopped into medium pieces as well. Be careful to not let the water boil over the pot! For about another 3-5 minutes the vegetables should all be done cooking.

Step 2 ----

Now that the heat is turned off, and the vegetables are down cooking. Use a spoon or label to remove 1/2 cup of the water from the pot. Add this water to a blender. Now drain the vegetables, and add them as well as all of the other ingredients. Hint: if you forget to soak the cashews overnight or for at least 6 hours, you may add them to the pot of water the vegetables were cooking in at the end when the heat is turned off for only 2 minutes, and then add them to the blender. If you want to keep this low in fat you may skip the extra virgin olive oil, but my personal opinion is that it will not have that authentic consistency of liquid cheese and will instead come out clumpy. The turmeric powder is just to give the cheese that extra orange color, but it is not necessary for the recipe.

Enjoy!

SOUR CREAM

--- Ingredients ---

1 can full fat coconut milk

1/2 cup soaked cashews

Step 1 ---

Blend 3/4 of the can of unrefrigerated coconut milk with the soaked and drained cashews. Make sure the cashews have beens soaked for 6 hours or more.

Step 2 ---

Then refrigerate for 10 minutes and once this thickens you have a sour cream. This tastes so yummy! There's quite a few recipes for vegan sour cream that involve tahini, and I do love tahini but just not in sour cream though! You can tell the recipes look like they have tahini, because they have a tan color, so I prefer this, because it tastes sweet like actual dairy sour cream. Definitely to each their own though! I'm sure that the popular vegan tahini sour cream recipes that I see often on Instagram and Youtube taste good, but personally for me, this recipe here is my favorite. This also has a milk white color, whereas many other recipes don't.

So the deal with this recipe though, is that once you refrigerate it, it will thicken overnight and when you use it next time it will be more like a fluffy mouse (similar to a whipped cream cheese). So to eat the leftovers you either have the option of warming this sour cream up to get it to be a liquid consistency again or just eating it like its cream cheese. Your choice!