Eating My Nuts and Whey

You know what? When I started this blog I expected it to be mostly about healthy stuff and homemade food and sewing projects... 'cause that's what I like. But somehow that didn't happen... and this blog has been mostly about my everyday life and struggles and God moments. And you know what? I like it that way! But I also think I'd like it if I posted about healthy recipies, herbs, or homemade projects once in a while - things that weren't so deep. :) So, maybe once a month? After you've read my first try at a tutorial, I'd love feedback about how often you'd like more of the same!

Remember in my last post when I mentioned that I was getting braces? And you know how I'm not supposed to be eating nuts while I have braces? And you didn't know before, but now you know - that raw nuts are one of my snacking staples. So. I introduce to you perfectly raw cashew butter!

Being the health nut I am, I often try to squeeze as much nutrition out of a dish as is possible without ruining the taste. So of course I soak my cashews to break down the phytic acid and enzyme inhibitors before turning them into nut butter. But guess what? We happened to have almost a quart of sweet whey in the fridge from making homemade greek yogurt.

If soaking grains in whey makes them more nutritious,I thought, then why not sub whey for the water when soaking the cashews before making the nut butter? 

It was worth a try, right? My only fear was that it would ruin the taste, so I did the cautious thing and soaked part of the cashews in water and some in whey. 

I let them soak for about two hours, then drained the nuts and parked by the food processor as I impatiently watched the nuts look like this: 

Then like this: 

And finally like this:

It took a long time. And I had to stop the food processor every so often to scrape down the sides, too. The first batch - which I had soaked with water - was rather bland, so I added a couple pinches of Celtic sea salt (use whatever type of salt you have) as I was finishing up. It never got quite velvety smooth, but I did learn one thing: after draining the nuts, try to blot up as much liquid as possible; this prevents a funny oil vs. water texture I got on my first batch ('cause the nuts produced oil when they we chopped up). It ended up like this:

And it tasted fine! I'm glad I added the salt, though. ;)

The batch that had been soaked in whey actually had a nice, almost salty taste - to my complete surprise - and so I left it plain, without salt. 

I thought the two batches tasted nearly the same, so I'll definitely use whey (if we have it on hand) the next time I soak nuts! 

How far would you go to add a little nutrition to your food?