CARROT SQUASH APPLE COOKIES

CARROT SQUASH APPLE COOKIES

Last night, I made butternut squash soup. In figuring out how much squash and carrots I needed to make the soup, so I could write a fancy recipe with exact amounts, I ground up an excess amount of squash and carrot, and ended up with about 2 cups of squash and a cup of carrot left over. I have never eaten squash cookies before – voila! A star is born.

 

1 C cashews (or other nuts, if you prefer)

2 C butternut squash, grated in the food processor (or other winter-type squash)

1 C carrot, grated in the food processor

1 apple, peeled, cored, diced

1 C ground flax seeds

Water as needed to make a stiff sticky dough

 

• Place cashews in the food processor and grind fine.
• Add squash, carrot, and apple and continue to process until finely ground and well mixed.
• Remove mixture to a large bowl.  Add ground flax seeds and mix well.  Add water or apple juice as needed to make a stiff, sticky dough.
• Place 1 – 2 T mounds of dough on teflex-lined dehydrator trays (it is easier to do this if you put a mesh screen under the teflex sheet.) Mash the cookie mounds to about 1/2 inch thick cookie-like shapes.
• Dehydrate for 6 hours at 100 degrees.  
• Remove trays from dehydrator. Place a mesh screen over surface dried cookies, and place a dehydrator on top. Flip the assembly, then remove the dehydrator tray and mesh screen, and carefully peel the teflex sheet from the cookies. Return the cookies, now on mesh-screens on dehydrator trays, to the dehydrator, and continue to dehydrate 2 – 4 more hours, or until the cookies have reached the desired firmness.

If you want a sweeter cookie, you can add some agave syrup or dates to the cookie dough before dehydrating.

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NIBBLES – what I did with the leftovers

Last night, I made spaghetti with zucchini pasta and a tomato/onion/red bell pepper/almond sauce. My sauce came out thick, but I like it that way.

After dinner, I looked at the leftover sauce and just knew I was not oing to eat it this week.  I had a leftover zucchini so I sliced it on the mandonline and then put a spoonful of sauce on each slice and everything in the dehydrator overnight.  This morning, I was amazed at how small the zucchini slices had shrunk, but I was very pleased with the taste of these little bites. My room-mate says they taste like pizza.  Next time, though, I am going to slice the zucchini thicker.

CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY RECIPES

I have an ample collection of Christmas holiday recipes on my Holiday Recipes page.

I will also include a few more new recipes in the next day or so.

FALSE ALARM!!! you’ve seen it on other raw food news sources!

I held my breath when I heard the story that the FDA was going to force “pasteurization” of organic vegetables. Of course, I was frightened, because of the forced pasteurization of California almonds, which has raised the price of raw almonds through the roof, but I still held off…. I held my breath…. good thing…

Today, I received an email from Dave Klein, the publisher of Living Nutrition Magazine:
“I was wrong about the pasteurization of greens; the FDA
is not, in fact, proposing to pasteurize greens at all! What happened was someone on the rawfoods board posted a thread that read like there was a proposal to pasteurize greens, telling us to protest on the FDA comment line, with a link to the original article. I didn’t read the article.

In fact, the FDA is proposing regulating growers’ practices, which is probably a good thing.

They’re proposing making growers test their produce at certain intervals for contamination. Also they are looking to make certain regulations about soil conditions, which some groups feel will negatively impact organic growers. I would tend to disagree, as I think a lot of ‘organic’ growers today are faking it and need to be regulated. The real organic growers probably have little to hide.”

I have sat out of this scary notification loop because I wanted to see what would really come around. I understand the panic based on California almonds (what were they thinking of… do they really think that pasteurizing almonds will increase almond consumption, as the world continues to go organic and raw????? They just make us go to outside (foreign) sources, which do not have such ignorant laws (unfortunately, almond prices for raw foodists have just gone through the ceiling, as (sensible) foreign sources have realized that they have a limitless market) The main problem for us here (in the US) is that we must trust foreign sources, which are not necessarily under the same regulations as our local regulations.

Perhaps, our “formerly” raw almond growers/producers in California will be able to organize (oh, but it is California!!! they couldn’t organize when the threat was imminent! )

Meanwhile, it looks like we are safe… stay awake… stay aware!!!

PECAN PIE BARS

Tonight I am making pecan pie bars. (My room-mate is leaving for San Diego — wonder how it smells/what she will see???— she is a big fear eater — she sat down and ate two sandwiches before heading home on 9/11– so she needs some food that will pass security and hold her until she gets to California from New York, since the airlines don’t serve meals anymore) 

I really miss pecan pie, so I decided to see if I could make a pecan pie flavored bar this time. (the dough tasted pretty close, and I am counting on the dehydrated bars being pretty pecan pie-ish)

PECAN PIE BARS

3/4 C pecans, soaked 8 hours
3/4 C almonds, soaked 8 hours
1 C pitted dates, soaked 4 hours

•    Drain the pecans and almonds, and save the soak water to add to soups or smoothies.
•    Drain the dates, and reserve the soak water .
•    In a food processor, combine all ingredients and process smooth (or to taste).  From time to time, push mix down the sides of the food processor with a spatula.  (Add a little date soak water, if necessary, to keep the processor running – I did not need to).
•    Take about a 1-inch ball of the dough, roll it into a log, and flatten it into a bar shape on a teflex/paraflex dehydrator sheet on a dehydrator tray. (Dampen fingers in date soak water to keep dough from sticking and make forming bars easier).
•    Repeat with the rest of the dough.
•    Dehydrate at 140 degrees for 1 hour.
•    Remove tray from dehydrator.  Place a dehydrator screen over the bars, and place another dehydrator tray over the screen.  Flip the tray assembly and remove the top tray.  Carefully peel off the teflex sheet, and return the bars to the dehydrator.
•    Lower the temperature to 100 degrees and continue to dehydrate until the bars are firm (approximately 6-8 hours in an Excalibur)

Makes 1 sheet of @ 20 bars (your mileage may vary)

PRETTY SMART RAW FRUIT & NUT BARS

I’m leaving on vacation tomorrow, and I have to change planes, which will make it a kind of long flight, so I had to think of something to take along to eat.  The last time I made something (crackers and “cheez”), security confiscated my cheez and then gave me a very very thorough search.  I don’t want to go through that, so…. I thought…. BARS!!!!

I’ve never been terribly interested in bars… I think I may have eaten a total of 4 Lara Bars in my life, so I had no clue where to start, except that I remembered that the Lara Bars were basically dates and nuts.

I don’t want to spend scads on a pile of Lara Bars, so I thought about what to do, and then I found a recipe in Brigitte Mars’ book, Rawsome.  I changed it a little bit, because I did not have all the same ingredients.  These bars came out really good…. I’d rather them not be so sticky, but they are still quite good… my room-mate says they taste like a Lara Bar.

MY TRAVEL BARS
1 C walnuts, soaked overnight, then rinsed
1/4 C dried apricots, soaked 4 hours to overnight
10 dates, soaked 20 minutes, then pitted
2 apples, cored and chopped

•    Combine everything in a food processor and grind fine, scraping down sides from time to time.
•    On a teflex dehydrator sheet, form mixture into bars about the size of a granola bar (or a Lara Bar), and about  1/2 inch thick.  Alternatively, you could make cookie shapes.
•    Dehydrate at 125 degrees for 4-6 hours, then turn onto a mesh dehydrator screen, peel off the teflex sheet, and continue to dehydrate for @ 6 more hours (a total of about 12 hours).

When I get back, I want to work on some flavors.