Gorgeous Dairy Free "Boursin"

I keep searching the 'free from' and health food shop shelves for a decent ready made cheese alternative, and as yet have failed to find one that works on both taste and texture. So many have a dodgy after tang or a seemingly never ending list of ingredients that I just don't want to try. There really isn't any point in trying to eat a healthy free from diet if a product is loaded with additives and preservatives. And since I found out about citric acid and how natural flavours and colours are created (see http://foodiesensitive.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/yeast-free-challenges.html) there really isn't anything on the market that I can actually eat!
Recently, I had some friends round for dinner and wanted to give them an inspiring, flavourful plant-based, whole food meal. Whilst in India I attended a number of cooking demonstrations with Dr Nandita Shah from SHARAN; browsing through some of my notes, I came across a vegan boursin recipe that I had forgotten about with "delicious" scribbled next to it. My mouth started to water at the memory so I just had to make it - and I'm so glad I did, as my guests appeared to enjoy it just as much as I did!
Although there is a little soaking time, this is really easy to make and is really adaptable. It's gorgeous raw and can be used as a dip, dressing or baked potato filling. It works equally well cooked and even browns a little so you get that crispy crunch that I really miss from baked cheese (the crunchy bits on macaroni cheese are always the best!). So either use it stirred in to pasta, as a pizza cheese topping or a savoury sauce. The key is the flavour balance - you want enough garlic to give flavour without overwhelming it, and a nice selection of herbs to complement each other. And it needs quite a lot of salt, certainly more than I would use normally in cooking, to bring it alive, so it's important to taste as you go.
This dairy free 'boursin' is gorgeous stuffed into some button mushrooms and baked in the oven - the mushroom juices and texture complement the salty filling; the flavours just make your mouth sing! Much better than any alternatives I've found on a supermarket shelf.
Dairy free 'Boursin'

200g silken tofu
200g cashew nuts, soaked for a minimum of 2 hours
1 tsp finely minced garlic
1 cup finely chopped fresh herbs (parsley, chives, tarragon, basil etc)
1 - 2 tsps salt
freshly ground pepper
water
1 tsp fresh lemon/lime juice
First, drain the cashew nuts and discard the soaking water. Place cashews in a food processor or grinder and blitz to get a smooth paste - you may need to add up to 1/3 cup of water, but don't add too much otherwise your boursin will be too runny. Once your cashew nut paste is smooth, add the tofu, salt and garlic and blend until well mixed and smooth. Transfer the mixture into a bowl and carefully stir in your fresh herbs, juice and season with black pepper. Check your flavours and add in more salt or pepper as needed.
To make the boursin baked mushrooms, simply wash a handful of button mushrooms and remove the stems. Place a teaspoon of the mixture in the centre and bake in the oven for 15 minutes or so until the mushroom has softened and the boursin has browned on the top. Gorgeous!!

Yeast-free challenges

The best way to overcome food intolerances is to remove them from your diet for a period of time, then slowly reintroduce them one by one and monitor the effects. I have an intolerance to both dairy and yeast, and have tried to eradicate them from my diet.
Dairy appears in different forms in many processed foods, but there are good alternatives, and as a recognised allergen, food packaging is pretty helpful.  Yeast, however, is rarely highlighted. On the surface, it should be pretty easy to avoid - cut out bread and doughnuts, wine, beer and cider. Apart from cider, I used to enjoy all these things with great gusto, but I've learnt to manage without, although its so tempting at times, especially wine and bread when you're on holiday in France!
Recently though, I realised I pay more attention to avoiding dairy than yeast, even though I know it's a big issue. Dairy gives me terrible head and neck aches that easily develop into migraines if not caught early enough. Yeast has a more insidious effect, gradually building up producing a multitude of seemingly random effects including restless legs, fatigue, headaches (different ones), itchy skin, dry eyes and (to the family's delight!) terrible bloating and wind! It's not going to kill me but it makes me feel so grotty at times, it really does have a negative effect on my life.
We all have various yeasts and bacteria in our bodies; our guts are alive with its own little eco-system that helps to keep our bodies healthy and balanced. Problems start, though, if that balance is upset; the not so friendly bacteria can start taking over and yeast becomes overgrown, eventually working it's way into the gut lining and allowing undigested food proteins and bacteria to seep through into the blood stream. This can lead to food allergies, amongst a long list of other problems. To get rampant yeast under control, it needs to be avoided food wise, the over growth eradicated and the gut eco-system restored to a healthy balance.
So step one, avoiding yeast, is easier said than done. It is more than just leaving out the bread and wine. For a start, yeast is a mould, so moulds in general need to be avoided. Not that I have a habit of eating mouldy food, or not obviously mouldy anyway, but it appears in many places, including anything fermented.
This includes ingredients such as soy sauce, over ripe or dried fruit, vinegars of all kinds, miso and malted anything.  Then there's stock cubes, Marmite (yuck!), pickle, mayonnaise - the list goes on!
Now I've tried to avoid many of these for some time now; some of the nasty effects from yeast have subsided, but some have not and others just keep reappearing.

So I decided to look into yeast and moulds in food a little bit more, and it didn't take long to make a huge, and rather disappointing discovery. Many of the 'natural' food flavourings and preservatives found in processed foods are made from cultured yeasts and moulds! The particular one that stood out to me was citric acid, a preservative and stabiliser that appears in hundreds of different food products, including simple items such as tinned tomatoes, tomato puree, tortilla wraps and flat breads - in fact many of the substitute foods I use!
I always thought that citric acid was a natural derivative of citrus fruits. A weak organic acid with a sour, acidic flavour, it is a natural preservative. Historically, Italy was the main producer of citric acid, formed from their huge citrus fruit harvests. Supplies were disrupted during the First World War but by this time a biochemist had discovered a yeast that grew on a sugary medium that produced citric acid, and so this replaced the natural fruit source. Citric acid is still a 'natural' preservative, but one that's manufactured! Today, 1m tonnes of citric acid is produced this way every year, and demand is so high it wouldn't be economical or practical to get citrus acid from fruit - there's just not enough of it to meet demand.
Natural flavourings and other preservatives are created in similar ways, so we are all inadvertently eating yeasts and moulds, although for most people this is not a problem. However, for myself and many others, it is and I'm disappointed I didn't realise this before. There's so much to learn about food science! If I really want to get to the root of my yeast intolerance, it seems I have to make absolutely everything from scratch, including my flat breads and tomato sauce. Convenience foods are suddenly absolutely inconvenient!