Vegan Fondue Cheese

Okay, so here I am giving this a try, I have some homemade sourdough bread on the rise while my oven preheats, and today I'm going to make a vegan cheesy fondue to dip the fresh baked sourdough bread in.

Ingredients:

3 x cups chopped potatoes

1 x cup chopped carrots

2 x tablespoons nutritional yeast

5 x red olives

1 cup chopped button mushrooms

teaspoon of salt

1/2 cup tapioca flour

1/2 cup white wine

around 1 liter of water

pinch of salt and black pepper to taste

Wash and chop your potatoes and place them directly into cooking water in a pot and not in a bowl of cold water before cooking - you will be doing this as you don't want to loose any of the potato starch which will help to make your cheese.

In a pot have 750ml cold water, add your chopped potatoes and chopped carrots and bring to a boil. Cook until extremely soft.

In another saucepan place the mushrooms and 1 cup of water and a teaspoon of salt, bring to the boil and leave to simmer for 10 minutes before switching off and leaving to cool. Drain the mushrooms from the water and keep the WATER aside for later use.

In a blender place your olives (make sure the pits are removed) with 1/8 cup of the brine from the olives. blend well, and strain the liquid from the pulp. Keep the liquid aside for use. 

Once the potatoes and carrots are cooked, place them in the blender with all the left over cooking water and blend until smooth. 

Add the nutritional yeast, mushroom water and olive brine to the carrot and potato mix and blend together. Pour the contents back into the pot and return to the heat and bring to a boil.

Mix the white wine and tapioca flour together (you can use potato starch as a replacement)** and slowly pour into the pot and stir until your fondue sauce is thickened. Turn off the heat and serve.

For a plain cheese sauce you can leave out the wine and use cold water or a plant based milk instead.

** Both these flours create a stringy cheese effect