Tired of snacking on a whole apple? Don’t have time to make fruit salad? Or maybe you have a lot of time on your hands and are feeling creative?
It’s time for a fresh approach to fruit! Fruit skewers are always appreciated — especially grapes frozen on skewers. These go over well, especially with hot or feverish little ones. As we mentioned in the banana ice cream post (also a great way to play with your fruit), frozen banana pops are a perennial favorite. Chop up some melon and set the bowl on the table with some toothpics and see what sorts of structures your family can create.
Put out some small bowls full of nuts, seeds, cacao nibs, and fresh fruit and/or veggies and see what sort of a zoo you can build — strawberry mice with cacao nib eyes and almond slice ears. Green apple frog with green grape feet.You’re only limited by the contents of your fridge and your imagination!
Mango Hedgehog with a Pinealoupe caterpillar
Breakfast ants on a log — bananas halved, smeared with almond butter and topped with raisins or other dried fruit
Apples with cinnamon — sliced apple sprinkled with cinnamon or almond butter
When getting together with family or friends, I always try to bring a dish to share that is family friendly really meaning the adults will like it and the kids will like it, too. I am the one in particular in the family that is also known for being super health conscious and particular about food choices. I love when I bring dishes that are loved by all.
To me, the fruit salad is one of the best choices in the world. It is easy to throw together, can be made with so much variety, what is on sale or wild and exotic and everyone around the table loves it.
Be creative and think in season and see what you can find that is fresh and local. In the summer, you can make a lovely red white and blue salad with organic strawberries, organic blueberries and chunks of apple. Or go for a more tropical bowl of mango, banana, papaya and kiwi. It is also fun to hollow out a watermelon and fill it with fruit when it is in season. In the fall, go for the plums, pears and grapes with apple. In the winter, I slow down on the fruit salad since there is not much in season but you could do a melon, banana, apple type dish.
Today we are going to visit family and I am bringing the fruit bowl. I cut up cantaloupe and tossed it with small oranges and grapes. I added mint cut chiffanode and a drizzle of honey. Of course, I taste tested along the way and can’t wait until later when I can have a whole bowl full.
Adding the mint is another area you can be quite creative. Mint is a favorite of mine for fruit salad but again you can vary this depending on what is growing in the garden and what fruits you have in your salad. Seeds like hemp, poppy and sesame also add a new twist.
Any leftover fruit and herbs can be put in the blender and whizzed up for a smoothie or freeze the fruit whole and take out for frozen little snacks. There is really no way you can go wrong with the fruit salad and I just know it will be enjoyed by everyone.
We had so much fun in our raw class this week and were able to whip up four great lunches! These included two from Ani Phyo — mediterranean dolmas and lemon fennel soup — as well as the very filling celery soup. The fourth light meal we shared is from one of our favorite books called Raw Foods for Busy People: Simple and Machine-Free Recipes for Every Day. Author Jordan Maerin really hit the mark with this little gem of a book. The recipes are just as she says, easy, quick and oh, so yummy!
The other recipe is Jordans Nori Filling that we used in a nori wrap. I love that this recipe requires only a couple minutes, is versatile and requires no equipment other than a whisk.
EZ Nori Filling
1/3 cup raw tahini or almond butter, at room temp
3 TBS unpasteurized miso of your choice
1TBS raw honey
1 clove garlic, minced or 1/8 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp powdered ginger
1/4 cup scallions, minced
1 TBS Nama Shoyu, or more to taste
Mix all ingredients. Yup, that’s all folks!
For our class I used almond butter and red miso. Again, this is an adaptable recipe and I usually use tahini and white miso. If you do not have scallion on hand you can use onion or onion powder. I always use wheat free Tamari instead of Nama Shoyu and 1 TBS is plenty. I do not recommend adding more.
To make a yummy wrap, take a quartered sheet of untoasted nori and put a smear of nor filling on it, some avocado and tomato slice, fold and eat!
Add water to the filling and you have a fantastic dip for veggie crudites or a little thinner and a fine dressing to wow your taste buds atop fresh salad greens.
One of our favorite on-the-road snacks is hummus. Garbanzo beans are high in calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorous, potassium and zinc, and are a source of dietary fiber and protein.The tubs in the store can be expensive, and can have preservatives or other unnecessary ingredients.
Soak the beans overnight to reduce cooking time — soak, drain and cook for 1-2 hours, and drain again. You can soak for 12-24 hours, sprout them for 2-3 days until the tail is about as big as the bean, and then steam them for 20 minutes or so until they soften. I’ve found enough information online and in The Sprout Garden to make me wary of eating raw chick peas, so if you decide to go that route, proceed with caution and do your research.
Seeing Lucia making sweet potato chips for the camera, Dante decided he wanted to make some hummus too. Except that was the first day we used the camera, and somehow the main video of him putting in all the ingredients was corrupted. Since he gives the recipe, I asked him to film it again using the extra chick peas and pretending to add the rest. He was a trooper though and acted as tho he had actual ingredients to add to the food processor bowl (love watching him “scrape out” all that tahini!).
Hummus
4 cups cooked/steamed chick peas (~ 2 15oz cans)
2 Tbsp lemon
3-4 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 cup tahini
1 tsp salt, or to taste
1/2 tsp cumin (or to taste)
pinch nutmeg
1/4 cup water (or as needed to reach desired consistency)
3-4 Tbsp olive oil
Put all ingredients in the bowl of the food processor and whizz. We usually add everything but the oil, and once the dip is nearly done, we add in the oil. We taste and add more spices, salt or lemon juice at this point as well. Sometimes we add more garlic, or roast the garlic first. You can add more lemon, 1 red pepper, olives, sun-dried tomatoes, chives or more to keep things interesting. While we tend to use hummus as a dip, we also spread it on rinsed romaine leaves and top with onion and tomato . Sometimes we smear it on toast
Mmmmm those Pesto Stuffed Mushrooms were soooo good! Now, hold on, don’t throw those lovely mushroom stems away! Of course, you can use whole mushrooms for this recipe as well but it is great for the stems alone.
Marinated Mushrooms
1 pkg of mushrooms, leftover mushroom stems or a variety of mushrooms
1/8 cup olive oil
1/8 cup apple cider vinegar
2 TBS wheat free Tamari
1/2 tsp sea salt or herbamare
2 tsp dried tarragon
Wash mushrooms or stems and place in a bowl.
Mix all other ingredients in a separate bowl.
pour dressing over mushrooms and let marinate in fridge for 1-2 hours.
These will last in the fridge for about 3 days. I like to have this on salads or just plain as a side. Another great way to serve this is to serve on marinated spinach. For the spinach: massage spinach with a little bit of olive oil, herbamare and tarragon. Massage for about 5 minutes until it is wilted. A little olive oil and sea salt and herbamare goes a long way.
Our favorite fan of this recipe is Uncle Barry! The kids aren’t big fans but I have to admit, it is one of my favorites so there is often not much left for them to try of this one!
I love the Go Raw brand of snacks but it tends to put a big dent in my purse. After trying their granola, I decided to give it a whirl myself. I changed it up a bit and came up with a great recipe.
Grawnola is quick to make so make lots as it will keep for awhile. It is a satisfying breakfast when you are wanting something more substantial to stat the day. We like it as a snack and it is a perfect travel food.
River and Gatlin are both fans of this grawnola and my hubby finishes off whatever is left so I feel it safe to say this is a family winner.
My Homemade Grawnola
2 cups sprouted buckwheat or buckwheat crunchies*
1 large apple, finely chopped
1/8 cup chia seeds
2 TBS sesame seeds
1 tsp cinnamon
2 TBS yacon syrup
Mix all the dry ingredients together. Add the yacon syrup and mix, mix, mix. It takes a little time to get it incorporated into the mixture, but keep mixing and it will all become covered with the yacon.
Dehydrate at 105 for 5-6 hours on teflex sheet or parchment.
Once it is dehydrated, you can add goji berries and/ or raisins.
Serve with fresh almond mylk and some fresh berries if you got ‘em.
Feel free to play around with adding other seeds to the mix or other dried fruits. You may also enjoy adding some other spices for variety.
*To make buckwheat crunchies:
Soak raw buckwheat groats for 1-2 hours. They will be very slimy so be sure to keep rinsing until the water is clear and no longer slimy. This can be done in a colander but I find it handy to do in a nut mylk bag or my inexpensive version which is a nylon paint strainer from the hardware store. They are about $5 for a pack of 2! Do get the large or extra large size.
After drained well, leave in sprout bag or bowl to sprout overnight, rinsing twice a day.
For this recipe, you may use the buckwheat now or dry them in the dehydrator on 105 a few hours until completely dry and there you have it… buckwheat crunchies!
As you have seen in other posts, buckwheat crunchies are great to have on hand to add on top of smoothies. I recommend making these in a big batch since they keep for a very, very long time in a glass airtight container.You can also sprinkle them on top of fresh fruit or banana with a fruit puree for a yummy dessert!
My kids love their breakfast cereal. Except much of what you find on the store shelves is relatively devoid of nutrients, and is pretty pricey to boot! So we’ve experimented with alternative breakfasts. Smoothies make up the bulk of our morning meal these days, or sometimes we’ll do the mono-meal thing and eat an entire cantaloupe, honeydew, or pineapple. But sometimes they tire of the fresh fruit thing, and are looking for something completely different. The spiced apple oatmeal fits the bill on a cold day, but on the warmer spring days we’ve been having, muesli answers the call.
I tend to make this at night, in big batches, so that its ready for breakfast the next day. I soak the nuts or seed for the milk, and since I’m rooting around in our dried fruit/nut drawer in the fridge, I pull it all out on the counter and go to town. I start with a base of buckwheat crunchies if I have a lot prepared and can share them out from my smoothie addition supply. Last week I didn’t have enough to use as the bulk of the muesli, but I did have a surfeit of rolled oats, so we went with that.
I don’t really have a recipe for this. I pour a large amount of oats into a bowl. On top of that I toss things like raisins, dried tart cherries, dried cranberries, golden raisins, and goji berries. I chop up bigger dried fruits like dates, apricots and prunes before adding them to the bowl.
Next up are the nuts and seeds. I chop bigger nuts like almonds, walnuts, brazil nuts, macadamia nuts and cashews. I do tend to roughly chop bigger seeds like pumpkin and sunflower too. Then I toss in hemp and chia seeds. If I have it pre-ground, I also add some flax meal. Sometimes I have pre-soaked and dehydrated nuts on hand, sometimes I don’t. If I don’t, I rely more heavily on fruit and seeds and use the unsoaked nuts sparingly. Lucia prefers her muesli without nuts anyway, hence the second, smaller jar of her own private nutless batch. I topped all this with a couple handfuls of my precious crunchies (is it me, or do I sound like the lovechild of Gurgi and Gollum, with my precioussss crunchings and munchings?).
Sometimes I add coconut flakes, sometimes cacao nibs. After this last batch Dante specifically requested that I leave the cacao nibs out, while I found them to be a yummy addition. Muesli is like my veggie soup — it all depends on what I have on hand, and no two batches are exactly alike. But I can whip up a batch pretty quickly and it lasts a few days if I make enough. Luke likes it too, and can put huge dents in the supply.
They will all eat it by the handful or from a jar with a spoon on the go, but they adore muesli for breakfast with nut milk.
Lucia may be our resident cookie monster, but she’s got nothing on me when it comes to chips. Knowing that good ole fashioned potato chips are not fantastic at building health, I’m avoiding them these days. But that doesn’t mean I don’t sit down to watch the Daily Show without hunkerin’ for something crispy and salty. So I set out to find a solution to my problem. I came up with several, including regular smoothies with walloping doses of nutrition for most breakfasts. And eating enough during the day so I’m not hungry at night. But for those times when I’ve still got to feed my inner chip glutton, I now reach for
Sweet n salty raw chips
2 large sweet potatoes
2 beets
5 carrots
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 tsp cayenne or to taste
2 tsp salt
2 tsp honey
Wash the veggies. If organic, you can leave the skin on. The peel on our beets was tough, rooty and thick, so I did peel those, but left the skin on the carrots and sweet potatoes.
Using a mandoline if you’ve got one, cut the veggies into pretty thin slices. Chip thin.
Place them in a bowl and set aside.
Mix oil, cayenne and salt in a separate bowl with a whisk. Drizzle over veggie slices. Drizzle honey over this as well and then mix the dressing and veggies to make sure all of the veggies are coated evenly.
Place on a mesh dehydrator screen. You can overlap a little, but clumpy handfuls won’t dry evenly.
Dehydrate for 8-12 hours at 110 or until as crispy as you like.
Dig in, and be careful — if others in your household get wind of what’s going on, you may not get to sample many.
These chips are stunning — beautiful, crunchy, and not heavy with the fried taste that plagues so many commercial chips. The flavor of the veggies is showcased, but the heat of the cayenne and sweet of the honey are lovely complements to the flavors. As with the kale chips, err on the side of not enough oil and salt rather than too much — a little really does go a long way. Also, I stopped the dehydrator after having them in overnight and some of the chips just weren’t crunchy. Disappointed and thinking I”d put too much oil, I left them sitting on the trays because we were heading out, and when I came back hours later, all of the chips had crisped up further even though the fan/heat wasn’t on. So if the chips don’t get crispy as you’re expecting, give them a few hours of exposure to room temp air, and see what happens.
All the veggies shrank considerably, but the carrots, having started out so small, win the prize. I would do these perhaps as crunchy bits (ha!) on top of a salad, but not as chips. Unless you have enormous carrots, or can cut the carrots in long strips.
Lucia and I made a video of us in the kitchen making these delicious treats. She had a hard time not licking her fingers or coughing on her hands so we had to stop a couple of times. But if a 5 year old can make them, so can you! This is our first video using the Dante’s new camera, and as you can see, we haven’t quite worked out the process yet, but we’ll get there. Enjoy!
Last year for Mother’s Day, my family got me a copy of Raw Food Real World by Matthew Kenney and Sarma Melngailis. The food in this book is absolutely gorgeous and the recipes all look soo gourmet!
One of my favorite recipes from RFRW is the Walnut Hemp Crackers. Many of the raw crackers rely heavily on flax, so this one is a treat in that it has a very different flavor and texture. Don’t get me wrong, I loves me some flax crackers. It’s just nice to have some alternatives.
Even in the summer when it’s hard to keep dehydrated things crisp, I gobble these crackers down with a smear of cashew mayo or cheezy dip and tomato on top. And when I say gobble I mean eat a reasonable amount and certainly not enough to make myself feel that bleh “oh no I’ve eaten too many nuts n seeds” feeling. Cough.
The first time I tasted them, I wasn’t quite sure I liked them. They were like nothing I’d tasted before. But I tried another cracker and I’ve been hooked ever since. I also really like the small number of ingredients involved in this recipe, and that some of the “breadiness” comes from zucchini. If you dehydrate it a little less, and/or spread it a little thicker, it makes a great raw bread as well.
Walnut Hemp Crackers
5 cups walnuts, soaked overnight
5 cups zucchini
3/4 cups golden flax, ground (~1 cup ground)
1 cup hemp seeds
1/4 to 1/2 cup water
1 Tbs salt
Grind walnuts in a food processor until finely ground, but take care not to grind them into a butter. Transfer to a bowl.
Put chopped zucchini into the food processor, process until homogenized, pour into bowl with walnuts.
Add hemp seeds, ground flax and salt, stirring to combine. Add water as necessary to give consistency of wet muffin batter.
Spread onto 3 lined dehydrator trays using an offset spatula or the back of a spoon or whatever else you have that will give you a relative flat surface. Dip the utensil in water to help keep it from sticking to the relatively gummy dough.
I put my knife down on the dough to create score lines. I tried moving the knife through but sometimes it would snag leaving holes in the dough. Putting the knife down and picking it straight up again leaves enough of an impression to make the crackers break easily apart once dried.
Dehydrate at 115 degrees for 6-8 hours or overnight. When the tops are dry, flip them over and peel away the linings. Dehydrate until they reach the crispiness or flexibility you like.
I like this best served with a thin slices of avocado, tomato and red onion with a leaf of fresh herb on top. But I’ll eat it with the mayo or dip or just cultured veggies sometimes. Sometimes I sprinkle the dough spread on the trays with nutritional yeast for an added flavor dimension. This recipe fills a one gallon glass jar.
Walnuts’ concentration of omega-3s (a quarter-cup provides 90.8% of the daily value for these essential fats) has many potential health benefits. In addition, walnuts contain an antioxidant compound called ellagic acid that supports the immune system and appears to have several anticancer properties. Walnuts, pecans and chestnuts have the highest antioxidant content of the tree nuts, with walnuts delivering more than 20 mmol antioxidants per 3 ounces (100 grams). And walnuts have been shown in studies to help lower cholesterol. So whip up some of these crackers and feed your body good!
In the winter here in New England, I find that our family is wanting warm food for breakfast. Partly because I turn the heat waaaay down at night to something in the high 50s, and party because it’s winter and our bodies are craving warm comfort food. So I make oatmeal. I make enough so that I have extra to pop into the dehydrator to make lovely cookies and bars for those days we’re out and about.
I usually just toss these together and don’t measure, just mix stuff in to taste, but I measured mostly this time around. Don’t feel obligated to make this my way — adjust it to your tastes and seasoning preferences. You could make a savory version of these for use as crackers or a sandwich bread using basil, oregano, onion, garlic, lemon juice and salt. Or a mexican version spiced with chili powder, cumin, lime juice, salt and fresh cilantro to top with guacamole, and indian version with curry, etc. The oats are a great blank palette and can go in many directions. The original recipe that got me started making this was in Kate Wood’s Eat Smart Eat Raw, but she used lots of olive oil. I tried it that way, then tried cutting down on the oil, then using coconut oil, but in the end I’ve concluded that I like them better without the fat. You may disagree.
First I made date paste. I don’t often do this, but wanted to try it for this recipe. Usually I just chop some dates and toss them in, or just use raisins. But today I made
Date Paste
1 cup dates
1 cup water
Let dates soak for at least 20 minutes (I soaked mine overnight because I didn’t get around to making the oatmeal when I planned, and they really plumped up nicely — these are the deglets from the bulk bin at WF), then pour both dates and water into a food processor (or a blender if you don’t have one) and whizz it up.
I soaked the oats overnight, drained them and rinsed them with warm water so the oatmeal would be warmish. This time I had the kettle on so I used hot water since I was using steel cut oats and wasn’t focused on them being raw.
Oatmeal Cookies/Bars
5 cups soaked oats
1/2 apple, diced
1/2 cup raisins
3 Tbs date paste
3 Tbs maple syrup
cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger or other spices to taste
Blend these ingredients in the food processor until you reach a consistency you like. We like it sort of chunky, so we don’t puree it too long, maybe 30 seconds. I have made it into something smoother, but felt like I was eating wallpaper paste and have since left the oats a little chunkier. If you can find oat groats, great, use those. I have had a hard time finding them lately, so I have been using steel cut oats. Due to the way they’re processed, steel cut oats are not raw, but since we’re not 100% raw anyway, I don’t sweat the small stuff.
Once you’ve done with this step, add in the garnishes. Sometimes I do this in a bowl, mixing them in by hand to keep them whole, sometimes I add them into the food processor and whiz it for 5-10 more seconds.
1/2 apple
1/2 cup raising
1/2 pear
Voila, you’re done! If you drain the oats and rinse them with warm water, they will make a warmish oatmeal. Or if you have a dehydrator you can pop the bowls in there for a bit to warm them up.
For our leftovers, I made oat bars and oatmeal cookies. I sprinkled the cinnamon on last and used that batch for the cookies since my honey is allergic to cinnamon. This way everyone can have a little oatmeal love, and not have a fit of sneezing on the side.
I sprinkled chia seeds on part of the oatmeal bars I spread on the dehydrator tray. The cookies were the perfect texture — crunchy on the outside, softer and chewier on the inside. The bars got a bit overdone because I left them going while we were out, so they were crunchier than I like, but were still snarfled within a day, so not too bad after all, I’d say.
Cookies ready for the dehydrator, and below, in the dehydrator with the bars and 2 bowls warming for the kids. You can see some escaped buckwheat groats on the floor of the dehydrator from our last batch of crunchies.
and all done! Inspired by the recent Olympics, Dante and Lucia made little Olympic figurines to support our breakfast of champions! Can you guess the events surrounding the cookies?
crunchy oatmeal bars ready for the road
getting up close and personal with some cinnamon oatmeal cookies
And what would a post about oatmeal cookies be without your friend and mine, the cookie monster. Cookie learns to ask nicely for — you guessed it! — oatmeal cookies:
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