Vegan 'cheeze'

Makes about 330g

Ingredients:
75g cashews (no need to soak) 
40ml water
30ml fresh lemon juice
1 tbsp refined coconut oil
30g tahini
15g carrot (grated or finely chopped)
3/4 tsp salt
pinch of paprika
1/2 tsp garlic granules
120ml water
1/2 tbsp agar agar powder

Method:
Get ready a small dish that holds around 500ml, and grease lightly with coconut oil.

Place all ingredients other than the last two in a liquidiser goblet, and blend on high speed until well combined. You may need to stop and scrape down the sides a few times. 

Put 120ml water in a small pan, and and sprinkle on the agar agar. Heat slowly until boiling, stirring with a wooden spoon or silicon spatula. When it reaches boiling point, simmer for one minute, stirring every few seconds as it thickens. 

Cool slightly, but before it sets, add it to the blended ingredients, pouring in slowly. Then blend again until mixed in. Again, you may need to stop and scrape the sides during this process.

Transfer the mixture to the prepared dish, cover and refrigerate until needed. 

-----

This recipe is fairly quick to make, although a tad messy. You'll need probably a spatula to get some of the mixture out of the blender goblet, as it tends to stick. 

The problem with most recipes for dairy-free cheese substitutes is that they include nutritional yeast. I know this is a healthy product, and an excellent source of B vitamins. It also helps nut-based 'cheeze' to taste more like dairy cheese. Unfortunately, it's one of my migraine triggers. So I was trying to find a recipe for dairy-free 'cheeze' that did not include it. There were a few, but many of them included other complex and hard-to-find ingredients. 

So I decided to experiment with leaving it out. This recipe - and I don't recall where I originally found it - had mustard too, but that's another possible migraine trigger. So I left that out, too. And it worked pretty well, we thought.  

The agar-agar makes it firmer than many vegan 'cheeze' recipes, so it's easily sliceable. It can be chopped into cubes, too; I recently used it, very successfully, in one of our favourite quick light meals: sweet and sour cheese.  I have also used it, mashed with a fork, instead of hard grated cheese in spanokopitta. 

For variety, you could add different spices, or add some herbs or even chopped dried apricots or dried cranberries.