The vegan thread

[waterslide]

I still eat meat/dairy, but I have been cutting back on it a lot, especially after being broke and ill so I was looking for some meal prep type recipes that are at least mostly plant based and I came across a recipe that called for cashew cream. Is it worth buying a three pound bag of cashews? I've never dealt with raw cashews before.  

The formatting on this site is annoying, but the recipe I was looking at was this one: Vegan Southwestern Pasta Salad with Spicy Cashew Cream  

Also, has anyone ever cooked with oat milk?  I love it in my coffee, but it does have an oat taste to it which I think would be weird in stuff like mashed potatoes, for example.  I've cooked with soy and coconut milks before, but I don't really want to buy more than one type of milk at the same time, so I was wondering if anyone had suggestions.  

[sputnik]

^^^
I’ve made a lot of vegan sauces and “cheese” with raw cashews. You just have to soak them. It’s also usually cheaper to buy the bags of cashew pieces instead of the whole ones. They make a super creamy base for any kind of sauce. I even made a friend’s cashew queso recipe and it was amazing and I don’t even really like real queso usually

I’ve cooked with oat milk before since it’s usually what I have at home but I don’t remember using it in large amounts, but splashes here or there. I don’t find it had any weird taste at all, on the contrary it’s the most neutral of all the plant milks

[waterslide]

OK, well maybe I'll give the raw cashews a try. Thanks for the tip about buying cashew pieces because I was going to buy whole cashews and what I was looking at wasn't exactly cheap. I don't think I've ever seen raw cashews in the store, but I've never really looked, either, so I was just browsing online. When I first saw the recipe, I didn't even realize they don't mean really raw cashews (the completely uncooked ones that are extremely toxic...duh).  eta - I guess you can get them at Walmart.  I had no idea.  

Agree that oat milk is very neutral, but wasn't sure if anyone found it oaty in stuff. One of my friends gave a vegan friend a glass of oat milk and he spit out and accused her of giving him real milk. lol But yeah, I could drink a glass of oat milk (though I probably wouldn't), but I don't think I could do that with straight almond milk or whatever.

[sputnik]

^^^
I usually buy the bags of raw cashew pieces from Trader Joe’s

[Pixie]

I only cook with oat milk. Oatly is a very popular Swedish brand, their stuff is excellent. They also have very good vanilla ice cream
Basically it's a very neutral "milk", that doesn't retain any taste when cooked with other flavours, it also foams super well if you want to make yourself a nice latte

[waterslide]

Yeah, I absolutely love Oatly! That's the only one I buy. When I was doing the barista thing, that was the only alternative milk that foamed correctly and it was so popular that we would run out of it. I put in cereal, too, but thought maybe the oat flavor would pop out when heated up more.

Edit - not to be THAT American, but I didn't know Oatly started in Sweden. I read the outside of the carton enough times, you'd think it would be mentioned! I have had Oatly ice cream, too. Love their products.

Edit sputnik I was hoping TJ's had the cashews because I'm trying to go over there today.

[no1novice]

Thanks for the cake recipes it's one of my team's birthdays + she is a vegan, disorganised and a bit of a food-nazi.

We're having a team meeting + I *hate* baking so the carrot cake is ideal.
There will be nearly 20 of us so the cupcakes will help pad it out! ❤️

[waterslide]

I just wanted to let y'all know that I found raw cashews in like 4 different places of 3 different stores. I don't why I felt like that was such an exotic item. I like cashews, but I don't love them - they're probably my least favorite nut (even though it's a fruit), so I guess I never really looked for them before, but now they're haunting me. But I did end up buying the TJ's ones because that was the first store I went to.

[sputnik]

i love cashews. the raw ones i only use for cooking but i always have roasted unsalted ones on hand for snacking.

[czb]

the oatly is great. and i used it to make mashed potatoes last thanksgiving (at a cousin's house and she didn't have cow's milk). a few people said the potatoes were excellent and when i told them i used the oatly, they were stunned.