Raw Pulp Crackers of Carrot, Pumpkin, Nuts & Seeds

Raw Pulp Crackers of Carrot, Pumpkin, Nuts & Seeds
Do you love to make your own nut milk and regularly juice, and you're looking at all that beautiful pulp and wondering what to do with it? I use pulps in breads or in dog food, and my favorite; raw crackers. I do like to keep my daily crackers quite plain, so we can eat them with anything; we have them instead of bread.
If you want a more savoury cracker, just add the spices you fancy; curry, chilli, turmeric, etc.

This recipe makes about 3 trays.
Cuisine: vegan, raw
Recipe type: crackers, blender, juicer, food processor, dehydrated
Prep time: 
Cook/wait time: 
Total time: 
You need
  • 1¼ cup mixed nuts (f.e. hazelnuts, almond, walnut, pecan)
  • ¼ cup mixed seeds (f.e. sunflower, pumpkin)
  • 200gr carrot
  • 150gr pumpkin
  • 60gr red onion
  • about 5 gr of fresh ginger (or more if you like)
  • 2 tbsp vegetable stock powder (no salt, low salt or normal)
  • ½ cup flax seeds in ½ cup + a bit water
  • ½ cup chia seeds in 1 cup water
  • 2 cups of water
To do
  1. place flax seeds with their water in a bowl, and the chia seeds with their water in another bowl, let sit for 20 minutes
  2. in the meantime, make your nut milk and pop the dryish pulp in your food processor
  3. juice the carrots, pumpkin and ginger - drink this heavenly juice and throw the pulp in the food processor
  4. roughly chop the onion and add to processor - it's probably a good idea to run the machine at this point, with a cup of the water
  5. add in the other pulp and stock powder
  6. blend till well mixed, then spread out on your dehydrator sheets
  7. dehydrate at 45C for about 2-4 hours. If you do this in the evening, and you want to turn them over before you retire and the top is dry but the bottom side is still wet, then place another sheet or tray on top, flip over, and use a thin spatula (I use a cheese slicer) to detach the 'dough'. Don't worry, it works fine.
  8. then score them
  9. I am not that precise with time, I usually let them dehydrate overnight. Then break them in pieces and put them in a container once cooled down
Notes
I love raw crackers topped with avocado, fresh coriander, a tad of red onion or olives, some smoked kelp... you get the idea. However, peanut butter does the trick for me too 🙂

 

Raw Pulp Crackers of Carrot, Pumpkin, Nuts & Seeds

Raw Pulp Crackers of Carrot, Pumpkin, Nuts & Seeds

Aniseed Sesame Loaf & Nut Loaf

Aniseed Sesame Loaf & Nut Loaf
There is nothing like fresh, home baked bread, and here are two examples of favorite white breads. In the middle you see the Aniseed Sesame Loaf, the other bread is the nut loaf, in different shapes. As I only use organic flour, I've never seen a white bread as white as store bought white bread 🙂 I like to keep it simple, these are fool proof recipes, and somehow they turn out different every time anyway, depending on the flour, warmth in the house, humidity. As I think kneeding dough can easily be done by my bread machine, I happily delegate that job, but as I don't like PTFE's and PFOA's (that are released from non-stick layers when hot), I transfer the dough to silicon baking moulds, let them rise and then bake the loaves in the oven. The whole process takes about 1¾ hours.
Prepared by:
Cuisine: vegan
Recipe type: bread
Prep time: 
Cook/wait time: 
Total time: 
You need
  • 3 cups of organic white spelt flour (makes a medium sized loaf)
  • 1.5 tbsp aniseed
  • 1.5 tbsp black sesame seeds
  • 1 tbsp poppy seeds
  • 3 tsp dry yeast
  • 1.5 tsp salt
  • 3 tbsp olive oil
  • ¼ - ½ tsp (apple cider) vinegar (optional, but helps with texture)
Or for a more nutty loaf:
  • 3 cups of organic white spelt flour
  • half a cup of walnuts
  • half a cup of pine nuts
  • 3 tsp dry yeast
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1.5 tsp salt
  • 1 tbsp toasted sesame oil
  • ¼ - ½ tsp (apple cider) vinegar (optional)
To do
  1. add the liquids to the bucket
  2. top with all the dry ingredients
  3. run a dough program of about 20-25 minutes
  4. transfer dough to baking mould
  5. let rise in a warm spot (or as warm as possible), tea towel over the top in case of draught, for about 45 minutes
  6. in the meantime, preheat oven to 200C (390F)
  7. then bake for about 35 minutes (tap the bread with a long knife, when it sounds hollow, it's done - but I haven't overbaked a loaf yet).
  8. take out of mould, let cool down for 10 minutes before you slice it

Power House Bites

Power House Bites
I hummed eating these, and so I know they're not only yum but my body knows they're nutritious too - and of course they are, being full of nuts and seeds 😉 If you don't mind getting your hands a little dirty, these are great for quick energy, and you can take them anywhere. If I make many, I keep them in a container in the fridge but they are fine in a small bag in a lunch box.
Prepared by:
Cuisine: vegan, raw
Recipe type: energy snack
Serves: 50
Prep time: 
Total time: 
You need
  • 5 dates
  • ½ cup of (activated) almonds
  • ½ cup of (activated) hazelnuts
  • ½ cup of flax seeds (I used golden seeds, they taste a tad milder)
  • ½ cup of pumpkin seeds
  • ½ cup of activated buckwheat (they are nice and crisp)
  • 2 tbsp molasses
  • 3 tbsp black tahini (brown will do fine too)
  • zest of ½ (large) lemon, or more to taste
To do
  1. In your food processor, roughly grind the hardest nuts first: almonds and hazelnuts
  2. when rather fine, add the flax seeds and pumpkin seeds, and run machine again
  3. when all is incorporated, add buckwheat, molasses and lemon zest, mix again
  4. the tahini is the glue, so add first 2 table spoons, and see if you need more; take a table spoon of the mixture and squeeze it into a ball. If it doesn't hold together well, add some more tahini.
  5. Do taste while you are mixing, you may want more lemon zest or not. You should be able to pick up a hint of lemony tartness 🙂
Nutritional Information
Serving size: 1 ball Calories: 55 Fat: 3.5gr Trans fat: 0 Carbohydrates: 5 Sugar: 1.75 Sodium: 1mg Protein: 2gr Cholesterol: 0

 

Are your nuts activated?

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Now, I don’t want you to get too personal, let’s stick to the nuts we buy in a shop 😉

I have to be honest, I don’t remember whom to give credit for this chart. I found it a few years ago on the internet and just copied it. I hope the author will foregive me!

I use this chart regularly, it is a great help. Although I do soak most nuts just overnight, seeds and grains I always check.

What are activated nuts? Basically, they are nuts that have been soaked.

Nuts are great, they are healthy and versatile. You can add them to any dish or have them as a snack, you can spice them or eat them plain.
There is a little trick to them though, and that is phytic acid. Phytic acid is an enzyme inhibitor, which means, it is to prevent nuts and seeds from sprouting under unfavourable conditions. There has to be enough moisture and light, for instance. It is a clever system, nature doesn’t want to let seeds go to waste 🙂 Once these conditions are there, as in, the nuts have fallen on the ground and find the soil nice and moist and the weather is right, or, you put your nuts in a bowl with filtered water on your kitchen bench, the phytic acid is deactivated and therefore the sprouting process can begin. You don’t have to see a tail appearing, give it 4-12 hours (depending per nut, see chart) and inside the nuts (or seeds) the enzymes are being released and sprouting begins.

Now why activate your nuts? 1) Because phytic acid interferes with the absorption of certain minerals. So you may be eating your healthy nuts, at the same time you don’t get the most out of them, and they will also interfere with other foods in your stomach. Of course, if you eat some nuts once a week, it won’t matter much, but if they are part of your diet every day, then it will matter.
2) Because when sprouted, all enzymes are released and they are outrageously good for us.

How do you go about it? Well, there are a few ways: you can soak your nuts (raw! No point soaking roasted nuts, as no sprouting will happen) and eat them straight away, all moist. Eat them like that or use them in dishes, make nut mylk, or blend with a bit of water into a nut cream (like Cashew Cream). You can also soak them straight away when you’ve bought them, and dehydrate them at 46C max., until they are crisp. I dehydrate them for about 24 hours, roughly. Keep them in a jar so you have them at hand when you need them.
If you don’t have a dehydrator, you can use your oven, but you want to make sure you don’t go over the 46C mark, as you want to keep enzymes alive. Some ovens go as low as 50C. You could check if that really is so, and if too hot, leave the oven door open slightly. However, it will take a long time, and personally I wouldn’t walk out of the door with the oven door open, just a feeling 😉

This is what I do with walnuts, pecans, almonds and hazelnuts. Dehydrated nuts are incredible yummy and crisp, and personally, I find them a lot nicer to my stomach.

Persimmon & Baked Banana Breakfast

Persimmon & Baked Banana Breakfast

Persimmon & Baked Banana Breakfast

 

The ginger gives this breakfast a bit of a bite, the banana gives it creaminess and the persimmon freshness, it is lovely 🙂

Grocery list:

♥     1 banana
♥     1/2 persimmon, wedged
♥     1.5 tbsp pumpkin seeds
♥     1 tsp sesame seeds
♥     1 tsp fresh grated ginger
♥     a decent sprinkle of cinnamon
♥     3/4 cup of rice puffs
♥     small sprinkle of Himalayan rock salt – optional
♥     a little oil
♥    optional: a dash of non dairy milk

Process:
– cut the banana in pieces and quickly bake them in a little oil with the pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, cinnamon and optional salt
– arrange in a bowl with the rice puffs and persimmon and top with grated ginger, add non dairy milk if preferred, and more cinnamon to taste 🙂