Basil Cheese Sauce

I could eat pesto every day, but honestly, up until several (okay, many) years ago, I had no idea what the heck it was made of.  All I knew is that it was some kind of funky green sauce that poor, misguided people put on things like pasta instead of a tomato sauce like nature intended.

I loved basil though.

No idea why I didn’t realize that pesto is basically basil, but there you have it.  Sometimes the elevator does not quite make it to the top floor.  It gets stuck on the floor with shiny things that twinkle in the light and distract me.  Fortunately, everyone in my family is very tolerant, kind and forgiving of this sort of brain hiccup, and would never laugh at me.  Hmmmmmm.

Anyway, since I love basil and pesto, I try to use it as much as I can.  But sometimes I want it to be more than just a sauce.  Sometimes I want it to be extra cheesy.  And so, I give you my basil cheese sauce.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup raw cashews, soaked at least 2 hours
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
• 1/2 cup basil, packed
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• juice of 1 lemon (a small lemon. You might want to start with the juice from half the lemon and decide if you want to add all of the lemon juice)
• 1 clove of garlic
• water as needed, but start with at least 1/4 of a cup

Directions:

1. Put the water, lemon juice and oil into a high speed blender first, then add the rest of the ingredients and process till smooth and creamy.  Start on the low numbers till things start to come together, then gradually turn up the dial to ten, stopping once or twice to scrape down the sides.

I added a total of 1/2 cup of water, but it really depends on how thick you want to make your “sauce”.

Enjoy!