Salade de Marmande

After all that dehydrated food of the past week, I was craving something fresh and pure.
We had this gorgeous Marmande tomato in the organic veg box this week. Just one, but oooh! How lovely:

I knew I didn’t want to process it, so I sliced in neatly and made this simple layered salad:

* first, a handful of baby spinach leaves,
* next, a spoonful of fresh home-made raw hummus,
* then the Marmande tomato, sliced (I had to share mine with Mr H, but there was plenty!)
* finally a couple of spoonfuls of the Cultured Vegetables I made last week
a drizzle of olive oil completed the dish…. Mmm, just what we wanted!

Dehydrated food is all very well and really does add texture and interest to food, as well as making some things more edible (eg aubergines) but as with everything – in moderation. It would be maybe not dangerous, but certainly unwise to rely too heavily on using the dehydrator, or any other appliance, in making a meal. Sometimes it’s good to just get back to easing fresh food. In fact, our diest should consist mainly of fresh vegetables, so no wonder my body was craving that juicy purple tomato!

The Cultured Vegetables are really delicious. I couldn’t believe it! I thought they would smell or taste a bit ‘off’ but they are soft and sweet. I confess I have always had difficulty with raw cabbage, but this makes it palatable and more easily digested. I recommend it. Easy to make, easy to store (pop the jar in the fridge to slow down the process once fermentation has started) and so delicious to eat!

 

 

Originally published on www.pollyskitchen.blogspot.com

Related articles

• The time is ripe for tomatoes (independent.co.uk)
• Our First Vegetarian Week (visionsofavegan.wordpress.com)

Super Cookies and Super Pancakes

One of the nice things about having a dehydrator is the range of interesting textures you can get from your raw food with it. I love experimenting in the kitchen and to be honest, green smoothies and salads, while delicious and very good for me, weren’t always very inspiring. I was craving cooked food. But not, I suspected, for the nutrition, but more for the feel-good factor. I needed some crunch, some goo, some nom, basically!
So I regard dehydrated food as Methadone for cooked food addictions – it satisfies the craving, without giving in to the addiction. And it can make a meal soooo much more interesting. I’ve never been one of those vegan martyrs who chews on tasteless cardboard ‘because it’s good for me.’ If I don’t like it, I simply won’t eat it. Period!
So here are two recipes which satisfy the baked food craving:

Super Cookies

1 cup of almond or cashew pulp from making nut milk
1 cup vine fruits, soaked
1 banana, mashed
1 dsp lucuma powder
1 dsp mesquite powder
1 dsp maca powder
2 tsp coconut butter/oil
1 tsp stevia powder or alternative sweetener
1 tsp ground mixed spice

Mix all the ingredients together and roll into small balls. Flatten them (as thin as possible) and place on a dehydrator tray.
I ‘baked’ mine overnight, which was about 7 hours, but they could have gone longer and been more crispy – we just wanted them for breakfast!

Super Pancakes
Pancakes! Yes, I know! I found this recipe here, but mine took longer to dehydrate. Perhaps I made them bigger.
Makes 4 pancakes
3 bananas, mashed
1/3 cup ground flax
1 tsp cinnamon powder
a drop of water to bind

Mix everything together and spread onto teflon dehydrator sheets. Spread as thin as you can with a spoon (dampen it if you have to, but don’t get the mixture too wet. I made one on each of 4 trays.

Dehydrate for 4 hours, or until the pancake will peel away from the sheet. Place another tray (with mesh) on the top and turn the whole thing over. Gently (and I mean gently!) peel away the teflon sheet.
Dehydrate for another 4 hours.
We had ours with fruit and cacao powder. I’d like to show you a picture, but we ate them too quick!
Take a look at Polly Noble’s pictures – ours were like that!

As with all dehydrator recipes, you could use a fan oven instead. Just put the oven on fan-only or on the lowest temperature and leave the door open a jar to let the heat escape.

Related articles

• How To Dehydrate Foods (mademan.com)

Originally published on www.pollyskitchen.blogspot.com