Vegetable salt

Hello there!

I miss a real herb garden. It's not that there's lack of space, the case is that I don't have the time to finish the building of it, a stone wall that will preserve the heat from the sun for the herbs to thrive. 

In the garden I had before this one, I had a bed for my herbs and made a very tasty herb salt every year.

This blog gave me the idea of making a salt of vegetable. It's in swedish, sadly for you foreign readers, but she has many great ideas about growing and cooking vegetables.

Anyhow, here's my version of veggie salt

1 onion

a couple of kale leaves

a bunch of tips from the sugar snaps

a grab of nasturtium leaves

A big bunch of basil leaves (the only herb)

two chilis (not the hot ones)

and a grab of maché lettuce

see photo below.

Mix all the ingredients above in a blender and pour 200 ml salt while still blending. The salt will absorb the juices and preserve the tastes of the greens.

Dry the salt in the owen with the door slightly open, the temperature should not be higher than 50 degrees Celsius. Store in nice glass jars.

This salt goes to everything and add a lovely taste to any dish. 

Irresistable spread

 Those mornings you feel for something heavier or those times when you need a snack, a seed cracker with almond butter is a tasty choice. When I heard about almond butter I googled lots of recipes and found out how easy it is to make. And as many people are allergic to nuts and peanuts (like one in our family) this is a good replacement for peanutbutter.

Almond butter
Roast the almonds 300ml in a hot frying pan. I think its better to roast them quickly than on low temperature and slow. If you wan't to go completely raw, skip this step.
Pour the almonds in your food processor and start the engine.........
......Use a good portion of patience here........
At first it looks like grated almonds but as you continue the almonds will turn to a more heavy dough. Continue to mix until you get a creamy spread, add a little salt and there you have a spread full of energy.

The allergic son has looked at his bigbrothers nutella spread with envy. With this spread you can make something similar, almost exactly in taste. Add honey, cacao, and vanilla powder. Be careful about the cacao the taste of the spread is already quite strong. If it gets to thick, add some sunflower oil to the spread. 

Both the almond spread and the fake nutella is full of calories so it's not a daily treat ;)

Buck wheat crunch

I know, it's strange I tend to post a lot of breakfast recipes. I'm such a novis in this raw food thing and haven't found out any dinner recipes yet, well nothing to write about, or take pictures of. 

These crunchies are perfect for a little heavier breakfast, served with light almondmilk or just as little energy snacks. I have a jar with these to snack on at my office table. 

The perfect thing with this recipe is that you reuse your waste, from almond milk and your juicer.

Buck weat crunch

2 dl of apple pulp from the juicer (this is the pulp that you get when making applejuice, the pulp is without the seed house)

2 dl pulp from almond milk (see picture below)

10 organic dried apricots, soaked in water over night

1,5 dl buchwheat, soaked in water over night (eventually dried in the oven or dehydrator)

 1 hand full of grated coconut 

1 hand full of sunflower seeds

1 hand full of pumpkin seeds

1 Tbsp of raw coconut oil.

Mix the apricots with a little of the soaking water. Pour it into a mixing bowl and add all the other ingredients. Mix all ingredients carefully until fully blended. You can also use a dough blender in this step.

Pour the mix over a baking sheet (teflex) and dry it in the oven under 50 degrees Celsius. Use the fan in the oven and open the oven door even now and then to let the moist out. Stir around a little. It will take 8-10 hours depending how wet it is and the oven. Store the crunch in a paperbag.

If you don't have time to use the pulp immediately you can store it in the freezer.

Snack time

In the beginning of the week, the weather was very warm and sunny. The snow was melting from the roofs and ground. It was so warm that it was possible to sit on the porchstair to enjoy the last sunbeams for the day.

As a snack I drank my favourite tea, white tea with spirulina and almond milk. A small bowl of roasted organic coconut flakes and pumpkin seeds to eat.

Almond milk is very easy to do by yourself. Take two hand fulls of almonds and put in a bowl of water. Let it stand for at least 5 hours to sprout. You can see that the almonds have swelling after that time. Mix the almonds with some water until it's a smooth mixture and add some more up to 700ml. Strain the almonds in a cheese cloth and fill clean bottles. The almond milk lasts a few days and it is visible when it's to old because you can clearly see how it is separated. Then it's time to pour it away. 

The mushed almonds can be stored in the freezer and be used for homemade crunch, breads, piecrusts etc.

The almond milk has a very mild and nice taste. I frankly prefer almond milk in my tea before milk from now on.