5-Ingredient Vegan Cashew Cream Cheese [Gluten-free]

It's my birthday! To celebrate, my sweet boyfriend surprised me with Blueberry and Corn Pancake Sandwiches with Lemony Filling. I guess he noticed me drooling over the photo of them in Vegan Sandwiches Save the Day as we rode home on MBTA with our vegan book swap swag.

There was definitely some food lust happening over these mini pancakes, but I didn't dream of making them myself for two reasons: Firstly, there are just way too many steps for me. I'm a "wash it, steam it, eat it" kind of gal. Secondly, it required vegan cream cheese. Ugh! I hate vegan cream cheese!

Or so I thought.

Richard was smart enough to not buy the crappy stuff in the supermarket. There are so many mysterious ingredients and it's so processed it barely feels or tastes like food. Instead he made his own in minutes in our Vitamix. What's in it?

soft tofu // cashews // sweetener // water // salt // nothing else

(Check out the full recipe on WikiHow.)

The results were super natural and super yummy! If you don't like dairy or vegan cream cheese, you'd probably like this.

I feel like a door for using cream cheese in other recipes has been opened: carrot cake frosting, between cookies, schmeared on bagels, cheese cakes, ... Okay, that's a lot of sometimes foods, but it's nice to know that sometimes foods can be made a little healthier.

Oh, semi-related: I signed up for the October Unprocessed 2013 Challenge at Eating Rules. I'm looking forward to eating less processed foods with Andrew's support and some awesome Bob's Red Mill coupons. Join me! If you're more of a voyeur, look for photos documenting my experience on Facebook and Instagram.

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