Super Involved Enchiladas

Sunday for lunch I had an Asmar's tuna sandwich on potato bread with pickles.  I wanted to make something really easy because I knew dinner would be much trickier - I planned to make vegan enchiladas!

 

I prepped things a bit Saturday by soaking cashews overnight and making cashew cream.  I followed a recipe I found online for cashew cream cheese, but tweaked the ingredients quite a bit.  It's definitely still a work in progress.  I'll have to try my hand at it a few more times before I get a final product I like. 

To make the cashew cream, I mixed the soaked cashews, vinegar, lemon juice, water, garlic powder, salt, and nutritional yeast.  I played around with proportions as I mixed, adding more cashews, liquid, and flavor, until I got a result I liked.  I never added vinegar again after the initial 1/4 cup I put in at the beginning (following the online recipe), and I still think that was too much. 

 

I actually thought the final result was quite reminiscent of cheese, but my boyfriend didn't agree.  Regardless, he thought it was tasty and would make a good enchilada filling. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In addition to the cashew cream, I mixed together some fake beef crumbles and taco seasoning mix to help fill out the enchiladas.

 

I mixed up masa flour and water to make tortillas, then pressed a bunch using my handy tortilla press - essential if you're planning to make your own tortillas. 

 

Once the tortillas were ready and keeping warm in the tortilla warmer (yeah, we love Mexican food), I poured some enchilada sauce in a dish and got to assembling the tortillas.  (In the future, I'm also not going to go with the Old El Paso enchilada sauce - yuck!) 

 

I also decided to try out a little Teese vegan cheese - but just on one enchilada (just in case).  My boyfriend and I split the the Teesed enchilada, and both agreed it didn't taste bad, but it didn't really add anything.  Maybe on something where the cheese is more prominent ...  I did have an awkward moment trying to open the Teese, though, where it exploded everywhere.  Beware: Teese package contains a lot of water! 

The final verdict: not bad.  We mixed together some avocado and salsa, prepared some seasoned pinto beans for a side, and I even cracked into the Tofutti vegan sour cream - significantly better than the Tofutti cream cheese experience! 

 

Even when I ate cheese, we didn't exactly prepare enchiladas a lot at home (I think maybe once ever?), but it's nice to know that's not a door that's closed now.   

 

 

And I still have a ton of leftover cashew cream ... so what should I make next?