Cashew Crema...

I’m not one to spend money on something I’ll never use. Pre-child I would have never spent money to get a weekly meal planner but upon having a child and barely time to think I decided it was time to look into it.

IT IS A TIME SAVER and a money saver because before I would never plan my meals I would just go to the store and buy what looked good. This shopping method is the bane of all budgets.

I looked at about 5 different meal planning site before I came upon Emeals. Almost instantly I knew it was the right one for me. The prices are fair and the options are great. There are 10 different meal plans to choose from and you have the option for the meal plan to feed 2 or 4-6. I went with the plan for vegetarian for two since Emma isn't eating solids yet. My husband still eats meat products but it is easy enough to include.  

I've been doing this for about a month and a half and I plan to continue because it really is helpful for my lifestyle. Maybe someday I'll get my stuff together and create my own meal plans but not anytime soon.

The recipes given so far have been good. Since tastes vary there have been a few phenomenal recipes that I will be keeping in my recipe box. A few I'd rather forget but on average both my husband and I have liked everything. I usually pick out two meals from the plan an discard them because I don't need them. Every Friday is our shopping day and we usually go out to eat because after work and after shopping we both just want to sit down and relax for a few minutes. The other missing recipe is a random reason like having dinner with in-laws or parents or just a request from my husband for a favorite dish.

One of the meals for this week was:

Rajas con Crema

(Poblanos with Onion and Cream)

Mexican Brown Rice

This looked great to me but you can see from the name that it didn't gel with my efforts to try and eat vegan but I really wanted to try this recipes. I tried for the first time ever to make Cashew Cream. It worked like a dream.

Ingredients:

Cashews
Water

That's it. I promise.

All I did was take 1/3 cup cashews and let them soak in fresh water for about 4 hours. Once they soaked long egoug I drained off the water and added the cashews and enough fresh water to cover the cashew in my blender (which is not a hig speed blender just 450 watts) and blended for about 2 minutes. Scraped down the edges gave it a quick pulse and then added enough water to reach the consistency I was looking for. SO EASY. Just store is the fridge.

I'm so glad I tried to make this because the dish was simple yet amazing and I couldn't tell that real cream hadn't been used. If you have a recipe that calls for cream try this Cashew Cream in it's place. If you are like me you won't even notice the switch.