This salad tastes best if allowed to marinate for several hours before serving. The raisins blend better if they’re soaked first, but you can skip the soaking if you have a high-speed blender.
Place the raisins in a bowl and cover with hot water. Soak until raisins are plump. (Place in refrigerator if soaking overnight.)
Drain the raisins (you may reserve the water to use for sweetening other dishes). Place 2 tablespoons raisins, 1/4 cup cashews, the orange juice, and the soymilk in a blender and blend on high speed until completely liquefied.
Set up your food processor with shredding disk. Trim the carrots, cut them into lengths so that they can fit horizontally in the large feed tube, and shred them in several batches. Place carrots in a large bowl, stir in the cashew cream, and add salt to taste. Stir in the remaining raisins and cashews. Refrigerate for at least an hour and stir before before serving.
Notes
You can bring out the flavor of the cashews by lightly toasting the ones that are tossed into the salad at the end, though I prefer keeping them raw because they’re more nutritious that way.