I had to dry it out

- Oh,that is a totally cheesy title- forgive me I HAD to do it!!


I know, I JUST finished a blog post last night, and lately my posts have been so long you have probably at best skimmed through the pics...
but I just finished a raw food (ish- maybe I didn't follow the strictest of LOW heating guidelines) breakfast which was awesome and I had to share, and gush about my new dehydrator.

- Oh & there is Ri's new mixer too- Yeah, they unfortunately take up a lot of counter space that we didn't necessarily have to spare .

- and there is some xylitol sweetened dried coconut and some dried cherry tomatoes I finished on top..


I got my dehydrator the other day, and haven't turned the thing off since. ...which maybe a bit scary come electric bill time.

That is the catch , drying food and prepping to make and raw food recipe I have found(besides plain whole veg/fruit meals) takes a lot A LOT of time... On the plus side of that, the dried foods take FOREVER to go bad- so you could always make such a a time consuming dish in HUGE proportions and have some to spare when ever the mood hits.

- a quick personal note on raw food before I get to the recipes I tried...
Ri and I are "good" food junkies. When talking about splurge buys and "if you had more money" daydream type subjects we always end up on food. If we had all the money in the world we would eat nothing but wonderfully prepped super healthy raw or fresh foods, with maybe occasional junk food indulgences... raw food just seems like the healthiest simple natural thing, but it also seems like fully adjusting our diet to that would be HARD time and money consuming work
....but really- health food done right is BETTER than junk food for us.You can have healthy EVEN BETTER versions of the crappiest yummiest junkiest food-if you have the time and the money..
We even save up money to make trips to the Whole Food store as a special treat.Yeah, we are odd ones, but at least is is a shared passion.-
Don't worry though folks, I still love to be really bad and have corn syrupy caffinated soda on occasion, too.
It's about balance I guess.


Back to the food...
So , my super coolie new dehydrator came with some yummy healthy recipes I was very intrigued to try- and I also spent the days waiting for it's delivery googling like a mad woman.

The 1st that caught my eye was banana crepes- I found a few differnt variations, some with added flax, or seasonings,but it is really really redicoulously basic...actually MOST the raw food recipes I have found ARE, I guess that balances the fact that it takes days to make a meal.

--------
Puree bananas

(- you can add some ground flaxseed, or season with what ever sort of spices you'd like on crepes-ginger,nutmeg,cinnmon.
I added some tofu to some of them, just to give it some more substance- but I fear that is also what made that batch a little crispier. )

Pour on to the nonstick sheet(my dehydrator came with them, but many don't)
and dehydrate , for raw you gotta do it ALL day on low heat.

Then you get this, banana fruit leather basically...but DUDE, I did NOT expect it to look so much like an actual ,factual, crepe!
neato. Rory taste tested and aprroved them for me, she had some of the outside peices that finished earlier
(the outside gets done quicker than middle - if you spread it so that the middle of the circle is thin and the outside edge thick you can sort of combat that effect).

While my banana puree was taking ALL DAY , I sliced some strawberries added spoon of honey, and let them sit in the fridge getting all saucy-

This morning - after I got very little sleep because of Ri's 'getting over that sinus infection' snoring-

Rory helped grogy me prep the crepes-



Spooned on some strawberries,
-my crepe was a little crispy and did not wrap as well as the others will.
a tiny sprinkle of powdered sugar , as decoration.Hind sight, a sprinkle of that wheat germ Ri bought would have been really good instead- or mixed in with the filling.
I didn't really put maple syup on mine. It was wonderful.

Rory decided she did not want strawberries in hers, and opted instead for a spoon of maple syrup...and more powdered sugar than I should have allowed her. She DID eat hers with mandarin oranges, and whole strawberries on the side.


The other recipie was too simple, too reccomended , and too weird NOT to try.
Flax Seed crackers.
- I kept reading about soaking flax seeds and how much they "change" I had to witness it.

So, 1st step- You soak flax seeds in some water for 4-8 hours.
After only 5 minutes the flax seeds went from being little seeds under water to gooey seeds with no water to be seen..
by four hours it was a solid jelloy mass..weirdness.

I spooned the mass onto a nonstick sheet and spread it thin,
added some salt and a few yummy seasonings and popped it in the dehydrator overnight..

Rory even likes to eat flax seeds in a bowl with a spoon plain, so she LOVED these:




I think I should have soaked the seeds closer to 8 hours - so they would be a little less solid and teeth sticky- but they are tasty and crackery.I feared they would be like seasme brittle or something, but no they are very much like a cracker.I will have to play with the recpie and see what else I can do with it- well maybe after we make it through this batch...
VERY filling.The sort of surprise filling where you eat two and then wish you would have stopped at one. LOL.


Oooo Next I am gonna see what sorts of healthy cereal I can make with the dehydrator- I bet Lissy would PAY me for a good corn syrup free cereal -ha.


Well, as you can probably see I have a living room to clean.
...and Rory is already asking for a veggiedog lunch , to follow her fruit/seed engorgment.

PEACE AND TOFU CHICkEN GREASE,
BABYHELLFIRE