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Power Slaw

June 13th, 2010

Wow! I am so impressed with the salad I am going to share with you today. It is called Wakame Hemp Power Slaw and it is a knockout! I am still on my kick of using my recipe books at home. I like to call my raw books recipe books because well, they aren’t really “cook”books. I have also changed my lingo in conversation to making or preparing food rather than cooking it since I am not applying heat to the dishes. Anyway, back to the point. This salad blew me away and is another new favorite. I am so grateful to Ani Phyo and her book Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen for all the new salads I have been exploring through her book. They are so varied and different than your typical salad so now I have almost enough salads in my repertoire for every mood I am in!

Wakame Hemp Power Slaw was so easy to prepare and will last 3-4 days in the fridge. Mine didn’t last but two. Proud to say, my hubby even took some to work the next day he liked it so much. I also brought some to share with Sioux to get her review. So, my kids didn’t like it so much but I think they would after a few exposures. I read the other day it can take 15 exposures to a new food before taking to it. So, one down, 14 to go because mamma will be making this one again with all it’s flavor and creamy goodness.

I think we have all heard of the wonderful benefits of kale but what about wakame? Sea veggies are powerhouses. Wakame is high in calcium, protein and chlorophyll. Sea vegetables add essential nutrients and minerals to our diets. They are very versatile and are great in salads and soups. Nori is a common seaweed used as the wrapper for sushi. Dulse is a great salt substitute as is kelp granules. Here is a yummy to add more of these treasures from the sea into your diet.

Wakame Hemp Power Slaw

slaw:

1/2 head kale, ribs removed and torn into bite sized pieces
1/4 head red cabbage, cored and thinly sliced
2 scallions (I used chives from the garden)
1/2 c dry wakame
1/2 c hemp seeds

power dressing

3/4 c brazil nuts (I was out so I used some almonds and cashews)
2 cloves garlic
1 TBS grated ginger (I didn’t measure and just threw about a 1 inch hunk in)
1 tsp sea salt
1/4 c hemp oil (I used olive oil but hemp or flax would be delish!)
juice of 1 lime, about 2 TBS
1/4 c water

For slaw, tear kale into bite sized pieces and put in a bowl with the thinly sliced cabbage, scallions or chives and wakame.
To make the dressing, use food processor to process nuts, garlic, ginger and salt. Add remaining dressing ingredients and process until smooth. I just put it all in the Vitamix and whizzed it up until smooth.
Pour or scoop dressing into bowl with slaw and toss until well incorporated.
Top with hemp seeds

The slaw does have very interesting flavors. The lime and ginger in the dressing combined with the creaminess hold up very well to all the flavors of the kale cabbage and wakame. This salad doesn’t need to stand off to be labeled a side dish but is a perfect meal type salad and can hold it’s own in the spotlight. Enjoy!

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yard salad

June 10th, 2010

Thanks to our chickens, who managed to escape their large run frequently this spring, many of our greens got off to a slow start. Therefore, when I want a salad, I have to meander about the yard grabbing bits here and there to make up a salad. I take up a bushel or the salad spinner and head out into the yard to see what I can find. The flavor and freshness of yard salad bowl me over, and I love adding whatever edible flowers we have for both decoration and flavor, depending.

We just used a light homemade vinaigrette and made a salad bar, so everyone could choose the salad components they liked — yard salad with herbs and flowers, a spicy mix with cress and sliced radishes, and a not-exactly-from-our-yard mix that includes cucumber, romaine, celery and pea shoots. I wasn’t sure if they mesclun would be too spicy for the kids since some of it had bolted in the warm weather but it turned out to be tame enough for their palates.

The kids picked some small not-quite-ready-yet french breakfast radishes while I cut the mesclun mix and cress (cress, tiny radishes and mesclun in spinner acros the top of the picture). I also gathered (going clockwise for rest of picture) parsley (far left), lambs quarters (pick them young — you can eat the stems if they’re young enough, or just the leaves if they’re woodier), some merveille de quatre saisons lettuce and bronze arrowhead lettuce, two varieties of kale and just a pinch of basil.

These pictures are from a couple of weeks ago, and the rest of the radishes have poked their ruddy shoulders out of the ground and were eaten already. Our lambs quarters are at the point that I’m only picking leaves, and our parsley, which had overwintered, is starting to flower. The lettuces are offering up more than just a couple of small leaves, and the chard is also big enough to harvest so we’re still enjoying yard salad in all it’s seasonal variations. The chive flowers have passed, though i’m wondering if I’d chopped them all off and not allowed it to set seeds, if it would keep producing flowers — anyone have any experience with this? We’ve started adding rose petals and wood sorrel which are out now that earlier “weeds” like chickweed are also past their prime.

What do you scrounge from your yard for your salad?

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edible flowers, greens, salad, weeds, wild edibles

Pretty In Purple

June 6th, 2010

I love to get new raw books from the library! For a change, I decided to start making more recipes out of the many raw books on my own shelf. What a novel idea, eh? So, it was time to go grocery shopping again and I went to the shelf and picked Ani Phyo as my author of choice this time around. I bookmarked several recipes I want to make and am concentrating aon a couple a week.

I am always leery of kale salad recipes because I LOVE the one that I currently make and have tried many others and none have held up to the one tried and true recipe that makes everyone in my house go goo goo for kale and may I add, is the most passed on recipe I have. In her book Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen is one titled Cabbage Kale Slaw In Simple Greek Dressing. It is so simple and I really dig this way to use kale!

Pretty In Purple Salad

1/2 head kale, any type, destemmed (I used curly)
1/4 head red cabbage (Iused 1/2 a head)

simple Greek dressing

2 TBS apple cider vinegar
1/4 c. olive oil
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp thyme

Thinly slice the kale and cabbage and place in a mixing bowl. Place the dressing ingredients in the bowl and toss well. Eat right away or set aside to marinate and soften.

I had also added a couple cloves of garlic to the dressing. I put the dressing ingredients in the Vitamix to blend and then poured it on the slaw and massaged it to aid in softening the veggies since the dinner bell was going to ring soon.

Fantastic and pretty! Just right and perfect for lunch the next day. I even sent some into to work with my hubby and he ate it all up, yum!

The dressing recipe is like an extra special bonus. It is so good and really tastes like Greek dressing. It calls out for further experimenting to make a big Greek salad with greens, olives, grape tomatoes and dare I say a raw feta to crumble on top!

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Soup, It’s What’s For Lunch

June 5th, 2010

I really love Gatlin’s interpretation of my lunch today. He called it a plate of sunshine. I made River and Gatlin veggie soup (cooked) and myself another one of Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen recipes called Tomato Basil Bisque. I had actually made the soup the evening before and was having the leftovers.

Raw foods are interesting in that as time goes by, the flavors of dishes change and meld together. I have had some dishes that I didn’t care for after making them but a day or even two later they are smashing. The same seems to hold true for Ani’s Bisque. I liked it better day two. The kids didn’t really care for it day one but Gatlin said, “Not bad” this next day at lunch. Neither of them still ate a bowl.

Instead, Gatlin devoured my rays of sunshine! I sliced red pepper and stuffed it with a simple homemade guacomole. He loves these as do I. River is my simple kind of man. He likes just straight up red pepper and lots of it. He does like guacomole but not tampering with his red pepper.

Tomato Basil Bisque

bisque base

3 tomatoes, chopped
2 cloves garlic
1 1/2 c. olive oil
2 tsp sea salt
2 c. water

bisque toppings

1 tomato, diced
1 c. basil chiffonade

blend bisque base ingredients until smooth
pour into four bowls and top with tomatoes and basil

Did your eyes pop when you read 1 1/2 c. oil? Mine did, but I followed the recipe. Whoooo, too much oil. I would at least half the oil next time. It had mellowed by the next day but still way too heavy for me. I also didn’t have another tomato to dice for the top so I made and ate only the base. It would be really good with the basil and diced tomatoes on top but would lend itself well to other toppings as well.

A new cut: chiffonade, for those that are unfamiliar, is a way of cutting the basil. It will create long, thin strips. I like to take a few basil leaves and lay them on top of one another. Roll them up together and then cut thinly from the short end to the longer end. This looks decorative as all the strips will be of equal width. Basil is a tender herb so cutting it chiffonade also helps not to bruise the basil.

Enjoy!

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WOW: nettles

May 23rd, 2010

Grab those garden gloves — it’s time for a new feature on crunchybits! Welcome to our first Weed of the Week — Nettles!

We’ve already talked about the health benefits of nettle infusions. This humble herb helps with respiratory troubles, allergic reactions, arthritis, skin problems, kidney stones and bladder infections. but the uses of nettles don’t stop there. You can steep nettle stalks in a bucket of water for a few weeks until fermentation stops (once there are no more bubbles when you stir) and use a dilution of this pungent “tea” as a foliar feed or soil fertilizer for your plants.

In addition to the feeding and healing people and their vegetable patches, nettles have been used for more than 2000 years to make things like rope, paper or cloth. And they can dye the fabric too! The leaves will give a green color, while the roots boiled with salt or alum yield a lovely yellow.

Nettles attract a number of butterflies, who lay their eggs on the plant so their caterpillars have a tasty, nutritious start on life. Once the plants go to seed, the birds will visit your patch to dine. So it has a place in your wildlife garden too!

Here in CT, nettles been out for a few months, and the patches we’ve expanded in the garden are producing nicely. Although today Dante asked me not to do that again because getting around the garden in shorts and with bare feet isn’t as pleasant as before where the nettles were primarily outside the fence and just inside at one corner.

We’ve been using them primarily in our smoothies, but last week I found a nettle soup recipe in a library cookbook Love Soup by Anna Thomas. I adapted it a bit, and am posting the resulting recipe below. It was delicious, and Dante and Luke ate a couple of bowls. Lucia didn’t care for it, but said she will try it again next time.Something about it reminds me of homemade chicken and rice soup from my childhood.

Nettle Soup

2 large onions, diced
4 cloves garlic
4 carrots, diced
4 stalks celery, diced
4 yukon gold potatoes, diced
1 cup lentils
1 cup millet
6-8 leaves kale, chopped
4 cups chopped nettles
water or broth
salt to taste

Saute onions on medium low heat until they start to brown.
Meanwhile chop and measure out everything but the greens.
Once the onions turn translucent, add the carrots, celery and potato and stir occasionally for about 5 minutes.
Add the garlic and stir, cooking for one minute.
Add water and/or broth to cover and bring to a boil.
Add lentils and millet, stir and reduce to a simmer.
After about 20 minutes, add chopped greens and remove from heat.

I didn’t want to add any spices so I could taste the subtle flavor of the nettles, but I think next time round I would add some fresh herbs. And possibly more nettles.

Happy harvesting — don’t forget to wear thick gloves or proceed with caution!

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Lunches On The Go

May 21st, 2010

In an effort to eat healthier and save money, my husband has tarted taking his lunch to work with him. Some days we just do soup. I have been buying the Dr. McDougall’s which comes in a paper box. It is my top choice at the moment because it is a BPA free container! They also have many gluten and dairy free soup choices which is important to me.

Most days, I try to send a homemade lunch. I need it to be filling and something he can eat on the run. I am always on the hunt for good to go containers for this reason. Right now we use our tiffins. I am fairly pleased with these. It has 3 sections to fill. The top section has it’s own lid so I can put soup in it or another liquidy option and it will not leak. The bottom two do not have their own lid but use the bottom of the section above it. The bottom section has long clips to hold the whole contraption together. They are bit cumbersome when opened but this is a minor setback.

Todays tiffin included cookies made with leftover almond pulp, flax meal, dates, cinnamon and other yummy stuff that were then dehydrated. I put those in the bottom part. In the middle went some cheezy almonds. On top I put mesclun topped with fantastic fajita marinated veggies with a little extra dressing. Of course he takes a big stainless steel thermos of water as well that he can refill during the day.

The goal for me is to pack in the nutrition and to fill him up. I like to pack things like todays cookis and almonds that give him some power packed nutrition and are filling.

Happy travels!

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PB Granola

May 20th, 2010

Whoo, I have been on a recipe search for new granola recipes and Gone Raw had one that caught my eye. It is titled Peanut Butter granola and I imagined a nice hearty granola bar that had that creamy nut butter yum. Mmm!

Almond Butter Granola
serves 1-4

1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 c. raw oats
1/4 c. dried cranberries
1/4 c. goji berries
1/2 c. almonds chopped
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/4-1/2 c. honey
1/2 c. almond butter

Mix in a bowl starting with 1/4 c. honey. Taste for sweetness. Dehydrate 8 hours or overnight. Eat warm or cold.

Well, I tasted this little bit that it makes and fell in love so I started dumping a lot more in. I used about 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 1/2 c oats and doubled the cranberries. I didn’t have gojis so I used raisins instead. I hadn’t soaked more almonds so I only used the original 1/2 c. but added chia seeds and hemp seeds, a little more salt and only 1/2 c. honey total. And yes, more lovely almond butter to make it ooey and gooey. I started dehydrating it in the afternoon and Gatlin and I both had it for a snack that evening warm with some almond milk in it. By morning, it was done in the dehydrator. I had some plain in a bowl. It would be fantastic with berries on top as well.

Another option with this great recipe would be to make cookies. Form the batter into balls and freeze for a couple hours. Play around and add your favorite dried fruits to make all sorts of fantastic granola perfect for breakfast, a filling snack or to take on those summer vacations!

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Cheezy Almonds

May 18th, 2010

While perusing the recipe sites for raw food in the land of internet time suck, I found a post on Gone Raw that had me curious. So, into the kitchen I went. I am always keeping an eye out for recipes that are good snacks to have on hand for the kids especially since we need easy to travel food with all the homeschool activities we are out doing and outings with friends. Lately the need has expanded. We watched Foodmatters as a family recently and my hubby, Dan was really struck by a few of the facts presented. I declare this a must see for all! Anyhow, I am now on the search not only for the boys and I but for my love to be able to take snacks to work that are high in nutrition, raw, filling and yummy!

The author wrote that this is her version of the Living Nutz Vegan Cheezy Nutz. There were quite a few good comments following the recipe so we are giving it a try.

Ingredients:

2 c. raw almonds soaked 6-8 hours
1 lemon juiced
1 TBS wheat free tamari
1 tsp cayenne pepper
2 TBS olive oil
1/2 c. pumpkin seeds ground fine

Rinse and drain the almonds. Set aside in a bowl. Grind pumpkin seeds in a coffee grinder and put in a small bowl. Add other ingredients to pumpkin seeds and mix. Pour over the almonds and mix until they are coated. Taste and adjust seasonings as needed. If the mixture is too runny, add more ground pumpkin seed. Otherwise, place on teflex sheet and dehydrate at 115 for 8 hours. Transfer to screen and finish dehydrating until crisp.

These take a while to dehydrate! I lowered the heat to 105 so they will take a little longer. I have been snacking on them out of the dehydrator and they are yummy. As always, after soaking the nuts, feel free to add spices and seasonings you like for more variety. Happy travels!

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Almond Pulp part 2

May 16th, 2010

More almond milk made and more recipes needed for the leftover almond pulp. Back to Segi and Valya’s Eating Without Heating, I made Vrinda’s So-Raw-Dough Crackers.

3 C. almond milk pulp
1 c. golden flax seed
1 c. water
1/2 tsp. caraway
1/2 tsp. sea salt

Blend all ingredients in a food processor until smooth. Spread one-half inch thick with a spatula on dehydrator sheets. Dehydrate for about 12 hours or until crisp.

Ok, I made quite a few adaptions to experiment with this one. I only had 2 cups of almond pulp so I adjusted the recipe as such. I also love caraway so I added almost double of that. I also tripled the water. I am always challenged when it comes to spreading dough thin enough. I end up with bread even for cracker recipes. Adding more water (as Sioux suggested) worked perfectly! I spread half the dough on a teflex sheet and then went back to the food processor where the rest of the dough was. I added garlic, oregano, basil, parsley and onion to it. I pulsed it in the processor and then spread that on another teflex sheet. I still had some dough left, so I spread that in a round to start the makings of a raw pizza.

Since I had spread it so thin, it only took about 4 hours to dehydrate. They are super thi, crispy and not overpowering. These crackers could have taken on a bit more seasoning but are still yummy. They would be great spread a little thicker to make bread as well. Enjoy!

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Almond Pulp part 1

May 15th, 2010

We have been going through quite a bit of almond milk lately and so I have been looking for recipes to use the pulp. I will sometimes dehydrate it and store it in the fridge for later use but I notice, there it is, still in the back of the fridge and I don’t often find a use for it.

After making pulp today, I made a couple different recipes with the fresh pulp. The pulp was unflavored to start with. If I make cookies, I falvor the milk before blending and straining so they base of pulp already has a yummy flavor perfect for cookies. Since I was making cheese and crackers with this pulp, I wanted no flavor to start with. I blended my almonds and water, strained the pulp out and then added the milk back into the blender to add my honey, sea salt and vanilla just the way we like it.

Both of the recipes come from Sergi and Valya’s Eating Without Heating book.

Valya’s Spicy Almond Cheese:

Mix the following in a bowl
2 c. almond milk pulp
1/2 c. olive oil
1/4 c. lemon juice
1/2. tsp salt
1/2 bunch fresh or dried dill
1/2 c. diced onion
1/2 c. diced red pepper
Serves 4

This was a last minute endeavour so I had no fresh dill on hand. I also had no red pepper and didn’t feel like chopping onion. So, I used dried dill, dried onion, threw in some garlic powder, oregano and basil and mixed it up. It is yummy. I would like the addition of some diced red pepper or other veggies cut in would be tasty.

It would make a lovely addition to a raw sandwich or to add to top a salad. I also set some aside for a raw pizza in the making. The cheese with the red pepper and diced tomato can accompany crackers or make a nice pate. The way I made it makes a nice spread or to layer with other dips or as a cheese for a raw dish with tomato sauce.

It was super easy to make requiring no appliances and will last several days in the fridge. Adding some nutritional yeast would change the flavor slightly and make another great cheese topping. This is a versatile recipe and can take on any seasonings you are in the mood for!