Spinach and basil cheesecake with a quinoa and black sesame crumb

I have been trying to experiment with various seeds in place of flours recently- not entirely sure why, but the loose reasoning may stem from the fact that I don’t often have wholegrain flours available locally in the small city of Changde in China where I currently live- big difference compared to my home in London. I do however, have a whole cupboard full of numerous seed species and which I am generally too lazy to utilise into my everyday dishes and tend to just incorporate them into muesli! But now that my home is virtually flour-less due to lack of time to go shopping, I must resort to the seed cupboard…

I love quinoa for the fact that it is a complete source of protein (provides all essential amino acids), so it's superiority to other carb-rich grains, such as corn and rice, justifies its little home in my kitchen cupboard. Quinoa is actually a flowering plant, closely related to spinach, of which we humans consume the seeds. I normally rustle it up in salads, soups and stews, but I thought, what the heck, I'll do something crazy today!

In regards to the sesame seeds, these come so readily available at every backstreet store in China so why not! They taste great, especially when lightly toasted, and add a wonderfully vibrant contrast, in terms of colour and flavour, to the quinoa so I thought they would be a great addition.

So for this crazy (well moderately crazy!) dish, here is the recipe.

First thing's first- cashew cream cheese: Soak 100g raw cashews in water overnight after which they should be creamy and slightly soft. Combine with 50ml water, 2 tbsp yeast flakes, 1tsp garlic salt and the juice of ½ a lemon. Blend in a food processor until a creamy, white paste results. Place onto cheese cloth and leave on a sieve over a large bowl overnight. The next morning, there should be a perfectly smooth cream cheese awaiting you in the fridge, which can simply be spooned out of the cloth and into a covered dish.

For the topping, combine together cashew cream cheese, fresh basil and fresh baby leaf spinach. Blitz in a blender with salt, pepper and the juice of 1 lemon and leave aside.

For the crumb base, mix together 100g lightly toasted quinoa, 75g black sesame seeds, 25g white sesame seeds and a pinch of salt. In a blender, blitz 1 tbsp brown sugar, 1 tbsp water and 50g sundried tomatoes in olive oil. Stir the tomato mix into the seeds and quinoa and flatten into a shallow cake tin. Leave to cool and set in the fridge for 2 hours before topping with the cream cheese mix after which the entire cheesecake should be refrigerated for at least 4 hours.