Vegan "Goat Cheese"

After a couple of really looooong days, there was nothing I wanted to do more than relax on Sunday. I had grandiose plans of going to the beach and spending hours in the sun - reading a book and listening to music. Well... let's say that didn't happen since the sun decided to stay behind the marine layer until 5:00 in the afternoon. Wah wah wah.

However - that lead me to a day in the kitchen! I found this recipe on pinterest and thought it would be a fun vegan challenge. I can share my learnings at the end too.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup raw pine nuts
• 1 t olive oil
• 1 t lemon juice
• 1 t lemon zest
• 1/2 clove of garlic
• 2 t nutritional yeast
• 1/4 t ground black pepper
• 1/4 t salt

FYI - pine nuts are EXPENSIVE!

1. In a bowl of cold water, soak pine nuts for at least 4 hours. You can do this overnight as well.

2. Zest your lemon.

3. Squeeze your lemon.

3. Measure your nutritional yeast.

5. Measure your minced garlic.

6. In a small blender. Combine all ingredients.

7. Blend until smooth. Depending on whether you use a food processor, blender, or Magic Bullet, the time could vary. This took about 8 minutes until completely combined.

8. Scoop mixture into a glass jar. This 8oz mason jar was perfect. You also want to try and knock out as many air bubbles as possible and smooth the top.

9. In a 170 F oven, bake your "goat cheese" for 2 1/2 - 3 hours. You always want to prop open your oven door with a ball of tin foil and place a fan close by for air circulation. This is to mimic a dehydrator. If you have a dehydrator, you can reference the recipe link I posted above.

10. I baked mine for 3 hours, but my PRO TIP would be to monitor after the first 2 hours until you get to the desired creaminess that you'd like. I think I would have pulled mine out a half hour earlier, just to keep the color slightly less on the toasty side.

TA-DA!

The final product was quite delicious. The lemon juice and zest really give it that tangy goat cheese flavor and the pine nuts add a nutty/creaminess that goat cheese is known for. Mine was slightly toasted, but tasty none the less. 

It inspired me to make a pizza using the "goat cheese" that will come in a future post.

Here's to trying something new and learning new tricks along the way. Can't wait to really perfect this!

Cheers,

Kate