Green "Swamp" Wafers

Top o' the Morning, to Ye!  I hope you have a wonderfully happy gorgeous green day!

I had fun this week making another new recipe from Dr. Gabriel Cousens' Rainbow Green Living Cuisine book!

Since it's St. Patrick's Day, I figured something green would be fun!

With a dough made from almonds, spirulina, oil, and salt, these savory little treats are health-packed and unique!  I used about half the spirulina called for because I'm not a fan of that flavor, so I was being careful :)

These are odd little flaky crisps, and they seem like a versatile base!  Plain and simple, or maybe add stuff!

Here's a picture of the different things I tired:

From top left:

Raisins, organic cocoa, drops of agave

Cinnamon, maca powder, onion and garlic powder

Hazelnuts, chia seeds, and plain

I figure this lets me play around with sweet and savory!  So, I spread it out, and then put it in the dehydrator!  I don't know if my dehydrator just doesn't work that well, but it took a lot longer to dehydrate than the recipe called for.  But in the end, they had this great wafer texture, crumbly yet crisp!

All dried out!

And now I have these wonderfully healthy treats to sample for my run this weekend!

Almonds, I have discussed before - good healthy fats, calcium, proteins, antioxidants.

Salt is great for post-run replenishing sodium.

And spirulina, a blue-green algea (yeah, sounds gross, I know) but, as University of Maryland Medical Center states, "Spirulina is a type of blue-green algae that is rich in protein, vitamins, minerals, and carotenoids (a type of antioxidant that can help protect cells from damage). It contains nutrients, including B complex vitamins, beta-carotene, vitamin E, manganese, zinc, copper, iron, selenium, and gamma linolenic acid (an essential fatty acid)." This complete potein - containing all amino acids - help improve the immune system, fight cancer, protect against allergic reactions, help with growth of your body's good bacteria, and protect yout liver!  Of course, this is a newer item to the world of research, so they say more studies are needed to know for sure what wonderful benefits this gorgeous green goodie will provide!

And to go with this savory treat, I did have some processed green drink... but no beer here!  I know it's not as good as fresh-made green smoothie, but I was short on time.  So Dave and I just enjoyed this lovely sweet drink:

Green Goodness drink for Bolthouse Farms

Happy Green Day, my friends!  I hope you enjoyed whatever you did (though, of course, I hope you took some care for your liver!)

~Katie

Kitchen Fun and Crackers

Good afternoon lovely friends! I have been blessed with a relaxing 4 day weekend, because a workshop I was planning to go to was rescheduled. Okay, so in a way, that's not a blessing because I was really excited to go!! ...But on the plus side, that meant I got to stay home, relax, and have fun playing in the kitchen.

An online friend of mine posted a recipe for a healthy remake of a Southern Gumbo recipe, so I was all excited to try making that! So, before I did that, I wanted to prep a few things ahead of time, since there are soaking and dehydration times involved.

I mixed her Cajun seasoning:

I prepped the "rice" so it could marinate:

Processed Parsnips make for a good rice substitute!

I prepped tomato sauce:

And I prepped dehydrated "sausage" from nuts and sage base:

I just made flat "sausage" this time.
Next time, I think I'll actually roll it into balls first!

And I wanted to make some carrot-based crackers to go with it, so that required juicing carrots so I could work with the pulp:

Mmmm, nothing like sweet fresh carrot juice!!

Some extra to take to Dave!

So that's what I spent some time doing today!

The crackers were quite easy once I had pulp. And I had fun purchasing little food-grade stencils so I could decorate things like crackers and more!

Traditional gumbo normally has shrimp, but my friend's recipe instead called for sea vegetables. But I omitted the sea vegetables (I am working on sea foods... I still have an aversion to all things sea flavored) and so instead I used the raw kelp flakes to decorate some of the crackers, while adding a hint of sea salt flavor, and used paprika as a beautiful burnt red color for others!

Those will dehydrate over night, and tomorrow Dave and I can enjoy some gumbo!

This is a half batch.
A full batch would probably fill one full Dehydrator tray.

Carrot Sesame Crackers:

1 cup carrot pulp

1 cup hemp seeds

1/2 cup sesame seeds, rinsed

2/3 cup golden flax seeds, soaked 1 hour to make thickened liquid

1/4 cup onion, minced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 Tbs honey (or to taste)

1 Tbs cashew butter (as needed, to help all mix)

Optional: can add sea salt, but since I was decorating with salty flavored kelp, I skipped the salt

Mix all by hand, or process in food processor. Spread on Teflex sheet or parchment paper. Score into desired sizes, decorate if desired, and dehydrate at 105-110 until crispy.