Flaxseed Crackers - the latest experiment

THERE IS NO WAY you can screw up flaxseed crackers if you have a good blender, soak the hell outta your nuts, and use good fresh or dried ingredients and don't abuse salt or any powdered spices.

This week's experiment in sweet flaxseed-almond crackers was an attempt to make a raw biscotti.

Orange-Cranberry Almond Flaxseed Crackers
2 c. orange pulp (from juicing) & zest from as many oranges as you have patience to zest with your microplane
1 lb frozen cranberries, defrosted and pulsed in the blender or food processor
2 c. raw almonds, soaked and sprouted and pulverized into med (smaller than coarse) pieces
2 c. flax seeds, pulverized in your blender and soaked with 4-5 c. water
1 c. agave
1 t. sea salt of your choice (I like pink)

Mix it all together - add some raw cacao powder if you want to get fancy. Spread it out on your dehydrator sheets and put it in the dehydrator. Make sure you pop any unbroken cranberries (makes nice red splotches).

Yum. Pictures coming if I can manage to take any before I eat all these.

New Theory of Flaxseed Crackers

FLAXSEED CRACKERS are yummy. No two ways about it. I have been looking at recipes and instructions over the last several months but didn't get off my duff to actually make any until I had some crackers at my friend Kiera's house on New Year's Day with some of my own persimmon chutney. She bought these tasty crackers from Trader Joe's - but I thought, "Hell, it's a LOT cheaper to make them."

So, off and running. I read up on some recipes, checked out my Cafe Gratitude and other raw foods cookbooks and put together my first few batches of flaxseed crackers. One batch was flaxseeds and black sesame seeds with tomato curry catsup that I made (I know, not entirely raw), the other batch was full of hot yellow curry powder and garlic powder. Both batches came out really well.

Third batch, I went a little crazy - I used raw cacao powder, sprouted the hell out of some almonds and mixed it together with ground flaxseeds (soaked after grinding) and agave and turned out some crazy delicious thin, crispy flaxseed cookies.

Fourth batch - I really went nuts. Not only did I juice 10# of carrots and 5# of beets, but I used the pulp from my Breville juice fountain in the flaxseed crackers. Here's a list of the ingredients I combined for this batch of crackers:

Garden Veg Flaxseed Crackers

• 2 c. beet pulp
• 4 c. carrot pulp
• 3 c. flaxseeds ground and soaked with as much water as you need to use
• 2 c. almonds, soaked and sprouted
• 1 c. dried tomatoes, soaked and pulverized in blender or food processor
• 3 jalapenos
• 1 red onion
• 10 garlic cloves
• 1 c. nutritional yeast
• 2-3 Tb of Miso Master mellow white miso (this stuff rocks!)
  
• Fresh rosemary, oregano, thyme, cilantro and parsley from the garden, pulverized in blender

Really, for this you can pretty much add any vegetables you have in the house. I recommend soaking dried veggies so that they pulverize more nicely, but as long as you can mix and spread the mixture - and taste it! - you will have yummy crackers. Don't add salt - sprinkle a tiny bit on top of the crackers at the end if you want to add some because you have to remember that this is all going to dehydrate and any salt will be intensified greatly.

Long after pulverized the ingredients in my Breville Die Cast Blender and trusty ole Cuisinart, and blended them in my Kitchen Aid mixer, I realized that the mixture looked exactly like meatloaf.

After 36 hours on low - they crisped up nicely. I know I saved some photos of the finished crackers somewhere, so I will dig those out and update this posting later.

My theory? You just cannot screw up flaxseed crackers. There's no way.

Raw, Vegan Lasagna

This evening, my brother came over to help me kick start the assembly of the solar dehydrator. A friend of his came along and brought homemade dinner -- something people rarely do at my house. At my house, we often cook things and order takeout but having someone bring a ready-to-eat raw vegan lasagna was a real treat.

Here's the recipe:

Pignoli Ricotta
2 c raw pine nuts
2 T lemon juice
2 T nutritional yeast
1 t salt
6 T water

Place everything but water in food processor and pulse a few times and then slowly add water till you have a ricotta consistency.

Tomato sauce
2 cups sun dried tomatoes
1 small tomatoes, diced
1/2 small onion
2 tbls olive oil
1 tabls agave nectar
2 tsps salt
pinch of hot pepper flakes

Add all ingredients to blender/food processor and blend till smooth

Basil-pistachio pesto
2 cups packed basil leaves
1/2 cup pistachios
1/2 cup plus 2 tbs. olive oil
glove or two of garlic
1 tsp salt
pinch black pepper

Combine in food processor and blend well.

Lasagna
4-5 tomatoes, thinly sliced
3 medium zucchini sliced with a mandoline
2 tabls olive oil
1 tabls fresh oregano
1 tbs fresh thyme
pinch salt
pinch black pepper

Toss the zucchini with the other ingredients (except tomatoes), you can adjust with more oil if needed and let sit for 30 min.

Layer in a baking dish:
Zucchini overlapping each other. Spread about 1/3 of each of the tomato sauce, then dollop on the ricotta and pesto then a layer of tomatoes then continue layers till all is used up. Let sit for a few hours at room temp or stick in fridge and let sit overnight.