When we lived in San Diego in March (if you are new, my husband and I travel full time, so we are in different cities for a month at a time) anyway… when we were in San Diego I found and fell in love with this tiny raw vegan cafe in Pacific Beach called Synergy. They had a nice selection of raw meals and raw desserts. Mosty, all of these foods had cashew as one of the ingredients. The raw vegan ice cream was cashew based and so was the spinach quiche, and so I finally got around to getting some unsalted raw cashews so that I could play around with them.
*Side note – so I grabbed a handful of raw cashews yesterday and was snacking on them, and I kept thinking “These taste like ice cream!” and then realized it’s because I had fallen head over heals for raw cashew ice cream and now I associate cashews with ice cream. Go figure.
Okay…. let’s talk about cashews.
First, it’s not really a nut. It’s really a seed, one that comes from a cashew apple. Because of this, people have less allergen reactions to cashews than other things like it (tree nuts/peanuts). They have about 5 grams of protein per serving, have very little natural sugars, they have a lot less of the ‘bad’ kinds of fat and a lot of the good kinds of fat – they are actually very similar to olive oil in their fat content. Other benefitis – copper which is huge in the physiological processes including iron utilization, elimination of free radicals, development of bone and connective tissue, and the production of the skin and hair pigment called melanin. It also has lots of magnesium, which if you want strong bones, you’ll need a good dose of that every day! Cashews are great for diabetics (because of those healthy fats) and they are great in helping with weight loss. All in all it’s a great healthy food to add to your daily menu – and it’s not just for snacking anymore!
Here are some cashew recipes and ways to use cashews. Also, if you pick up a good raw uncook book you will find a lot of great recipes that call for cashews.
Try adding a quarter cup of cashews to..
Pasta dishes
non dairy yogurt
non dairy ice cream topping
Salads
Cereal
Oatmeal
any cookie/muffin recipe !
smoothies
chili
make your own trail mix!
hummus
And then for you more adventurous people, how about some cashew recipes?
Baked spelt cashew mac & cheese
Pepper crusted cashew goat cheese
Vegan Cashew milk and green smoothie
Maple walnut waffles with cashew pear cream
Creamy cashew pasta with sun-dried tomato sauce
Roasted butternut squash and caramelized onion lasagna with cashew cream sauce.
Well, that should keep you busy for the weekend! Enjoy some cashews in your day!
And… if you missed it, recently Megan from http://veganrunningmom.com interviewed me! You can check it out on I-tunes by looking for “run vegan run” or you can click here.
Have a great weekend – and please feel free to add your cashew recipes/tips to the comments!
Cashews are definitely awesome! I love to use them for my dairy substitutes because of their creamy texture and their mild ans slightly sweet taste! And of course they are great for snacking!
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I absolutely love using cashews to create creamy dishes!
We lived in San Diego for a full 10 months and I never found that restaurant, what a bummer, it sounds great!