Zucpasta!

Last night, I finally pulled out my handy dandy World Cuisine Tri-Blade Plastic Spiral Vegetable Slicer. I used my birthday gift certificate money to purchase this little kitchen toy. The main reason I bought it was to make zucchini pasta. It turns the zucchini  (or any squash really) against these little blades and makes long curly, non-mushy “noodles.” I have tried grating them before for the same purpose and it usually turns into this mushy glop. But with this cool gadget the zucchini stays crisp and quite noodle-like, which is quick to make and raw to boot, perfect.

After the noodles are made, these little tubes of zucchini remain. Tyler used them to express his artistic abilities. I topped the zucpasta with homemade sauce (Steph’s recipe), ground beef and parmesan, yum! Tyler even gave it a thumbs up, well, maybe a 3/4 thumb, although he didn’t love it, it is pasta-esque and he will eat it (good enough for me!)

Cold cereal?

Cold cereal was something I did away with many moons ago. I have been making Tyler granola for a few years, which is good in yogurt, but leaves something to be desired as a cold cereal replacement. Then I ran into a recipe for raw, dehydrated cereal while searching through the plethora of raw food cookbooks from the library. I actually found several recipes with the same concept, but I modified it a bit, mostly to reduce the sugar and add more fat.

I call these Cereal Crispies. What a treat to have quick, cold cereal again. A handful topped with raw milk and fresh berries….yummmm!! I make these about every 2 weeks now. The recipe below makes a lot (I doubled the original recipe because we go through it so fast); it makes about 3 dehydrator sheets worth.

4 cups buckwheat groats (raw are green), soaked for at least 1 hour (I usually do more, like 4 to 6 and then have been sprouting them a little, which is just leaving them out in the strainer and using the sprayer on them with water a few times until I see little nubs)

½ cup maple syrup

3 to 4 tsp vanilla extract

4 heaping Tbsp cocoa powder

4 Tbsp + coconut oil (soft or melted)

4 tsp sea salt (sounds like a lot, but it does taste good)

Place the soaked groats in a fine-mesh colander to drain. Rinse with water to get rid of extra starchiness. Place in the bowl of a good processor and add the remaining ingredients. Pulse until well combined but not thoroughly pureed. It should look somewhat like soupy oatmeal. Divide between lined dehydrator trays spread about 18 inch thick. Dehydrate at 115 degrees for 8 to 12 hours or until the top is dry to the touch and the liner peels away easily. The crispies should be quite brittle at this point, flip pieces over to continue drying on the other side for an additional few hours or until they are completely dry and crunchy. Break into pieces and store in an airtight container, or keep in the fridge to maintain maximum freshness, they should last up to a few weeks. Adapted from a recipe in Raw Food Real World Matthew Kenney and Sarma Melngailis.

Cheese-Its?

I’m notorious for trying to pass a food off as something it isn’t. My friends still laugh about stories of me trying to get them to eat something not so yummy and saying it tastes “just like….such and such.” So I am hesitant to say these raw food crackers taste “just like” cheese-its, mainly because I can’t even remember what store-bought Cheese-Its taste like, but I can say this – they are dang good!

This recipe comes from Carol Alt’s book The Raw 50. Carol Alt is a supermodel and credits her diet of raw foods to her youthfulness (she is now around 50, and I have to admit, she is stunning). She boasts that she can replace almost anything sold commercially and this is her attempt to replace the Cheese-It. I think she did a good job, plus they are easy to make, one prerequisite for me.

Raw Cheese-It-Like Crackers

3 cups thawed corn (about a 16 oz bag)

2 cup shredded raw organic cheddar cheese, loosely packed

1 red, orange or yellow bell pepper, seeded and chopped

2 Tbs chopped red onion (white works)

¼ tsp cayenne pepper (optional)

¼ tsp chili powder

¼ tsp Himalayan salt (Real Salt or other sea salt works fine)

Combine all ingredients in processor and process until corn is pulverized and the mixture is well blended. Spread onto dehydrator sheets, dehydrate at 115 for approx 6 hours or until tops are dry to the touch. Flip the crackers over onto the dehydrator tray and peel off the liner. Dehydrate for another 10 hours +, until they reach desired crispiness and break into crackers.  

Avocado Pudding

My latest endeavor is to become better acquainted with raw food preparation. Raw foods have wonderful, healing enzymes and should be incorporated into every meal anyway, but during the hottest days of the summer, it is just not so fun to spend hours over a hot stove. Although we haven’t had really any really hot days up here in Evergreen yet, I am getting prepared.

“Uncookbooks” have been littering our downstairs for weeks and I have found some pretty interesting and yummy recipes. One I am particularly excited about is this Chocolate Avocado Pudding. I love chocolate, I love avocados and this pudding is nourishing enough to feed it to my kiddos as part of a meal! It is smooth, fluffy and totally yummy! The below recipe based on the recipe from Alive in 5 by Angela Elliott.

Chocolate Avocado Pudding

½ cup pitted dates, soaked 15 minutes

1 to 2 ripe avocado

2 Tbs raw cacao powder

1 Tb yucan syrup (optional and could sub honey or maple syrup, but honestly, you don’t need it, the dates are sweet enough)

1 tsp vanilla

1/8 tsp sea salt

Pull the dates out of the soaking water and reserve the water for later. Place the dates and the remaining ingredients in the blender and blend. Add just enough of the date soaking water to facilitate blending. Process until smooth. Chill in the fridge for 1 hour before serving.