Almond Cheese Spread

I can't tell you how many times I've said I love cheese on this blog or in conversation, but I love alternatives too. The Culture Kitchen makes a great cashew cheese spread and it randomly popped into my head the other day. Now the average person would run to the store and go buy some but I said hey I could try and make some of my own.

I did a little research and had a few recipes but I pretty much went off the cuff and did my own thing. If you look for recipes you'll see people mostly use cashews but since I had recently bought 5 pounds of almonds I thought I would use those as my base. Again you're going to need a super strong blender to make this and truly the best investment for the kitchen you could make. My first go around does not have any cultures in it, but I can work on that next time. 

2 cups soaked almonds, soaked over night

juice of 1 lemon

salt, pepper, garlic, parsley, dill

almond oil, as needed

water, as needed

3 tbsp apple cider vinegar

Cheese Fondue Dip

If you've noticed a theme from any of my posts: I love cheese! For Valentine's Day we just had a nice, low-key dinner and a jog, as we are training for a half marathon. We made a cheese fondue in my crockpot, and since we're an almost grain-free household, we dipped veggies instead of pretzels and corn chips, although I was tempted to buy some gluten free pretzels. I stayed strong, and we had broccoli, bell peppers, cauliflower, and cucumbers dipped in our cheese fondue. Fondue, it's really just a hot cheese sauce, but fondue just makes it sound more fancy for a special occasion such as this. 

 Recipe that I based mine off of, but tweaked a little can be found here 

Cheesecake Caramel Dip

It's apple season! I I love sliced apples with peanut butter but you know what's even better? Cheesecake caramel dip! If you ever licked the bowl before you baked a cheesecake then you know just how amazing this will be. All you need is cream cheese, sugar, a little milk, and a drop of lemon. Cream those ingriedents together, and then you just need some caramel. You could go the easy route- carameal sauce out of a glass jar, you could melt down some caramel candies, or you could make it from scratch- I'll let you decide which route you would like to take. You can also serve this dip with pretzels for a salty-sweet treat.