Raw, Vegan, Dilly Kale Crisps

In response to the popular and enthusiastic push for making kale chips whenever possible, I came up with a tastier and more versatile option!

Raw Dilly Kale Crisps !

Kale crisps are thicker, more nutritious and fun to make and eat! 

You can alter this recipe to suit your flavor needs. Instead of dill and sea salt you can use a dash of Tabasco or basil and oregano or even pesto! The flavor posibilities are endless! 

Here's what you need:

¾ Cup filtered water

½ cup chia seeds

2-3 cups fresh kale leaves

Fresh dill

Sea salt

Parchment paper cut to fit your dehydrator trays or fine meshed dehydrator screen

Blender or food processor

Dehydrator

Large flat wooden spoon

Combine water and kale leaves in a blender or food processor. Blend until smooth and soupy. Add more water if needed.

Add chia seeds and blend immediately, scraping down the sides of the blender as needed.

Add fresh dill and a small amount of salt and blend until smooth.

Spread slurry ¼ inch thick onto parchment paper or dehydrator mesh using the back of a wooden spoon

Set dehydrator to 115* and run 10-12 hours.

Turn over and peel away parchment paper and continue dehydrating for another 1-3 hours or until crisp.

Store chips in a paper bag in a cool dry place like a pantry.

Enjoy with dip or salsa!

Raw, Grain Free, Vegan Pumpkin Spice Granola bars

This is my very favorite go-to recipe when I'm working to maintain an "as raw as possible" lifestyle. It's a great grab and go snack and it's way less expensive than stocking up on lara bars or some of the more pricey store bought raw snack foods.

Something I haven't touched on yet is WHY we soak nuts and how long to soak them. I'm working on an upcoming blog for just this purpose! But for the sake of time and for this recipe I'll break it down simple and quick...

-We soak nuts and seeds to make them more digestible
-Generally, soaking overnight in filtered water for at least 7 hours is enough time (except for chia or flax)
-I soak dates to make them easier to blend and puree
-Do not soak chia seeds for more than a few minutes! Chia and flax seeds create a gell when soaked. Flax seeds can be soaked for hours but chia only take a short time.)

SO! All of that being said! Lets learn how to make these delicious and crunchy/chewy treats!

I do encourage you to play with the recipe and add your own favorite nuts, seeds or spices. There's a lot of room for personalization here! Have fun with it!

Raw, Grain free, Vegan Granola Bars – Pumpkin Spice

You will need:

1 cup soaked and drained raw almonds chopped

1 ½ cup soaked and drained, pitted dates (save some date water)

1 cup raisins

1 cup raw sunflower seeds

1 cup raw pumpkin seeds

½ cup raw chia seeds soaked in ¾ cup water

½ cut cacao nibs

1 tsp Pumpkin pie spice mix (optional)

Parchment paper cut to fit your dehydrator trays or fine meshed dehydrator screen

Large bowl and wide wooden spoon

Blender or food processor

Dehydrator

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Combine raisins, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, chopped almonds, cacao in a large bowl and set aside.

Put soaked chia seeds, pumpkin spice and drained dates into blender and puree until smooth. Add small amounts of the water from soaking your dates if needed.

Combine wet and dry mixes together in large bowl and spread mixture 1/2 of an inch thick, evenly on parchment paper lined dehydrator trays using the back of a wide wooden spoon to press evenly into place.

Set dehydrator temp to 115* and run continuously for 12 hours.

Flip over and peel parchment paper off, then dehydrate for an additional 2-5 hours or until dry to the touch.

Cut evenly into bars. Wrap individual bars in parchment paper and store in a paper bag in a cool, dry location like a pantry.

Enjoy this energy filled treat as a grab and go snack!

Salvage Gardening

This summer we've been working hard on a project at the local high school that involves refurbishing an old, unused greenhouse as well as providing space for a "community" garden for students and staff to have full access to for growing food.

I took on the task of building the garden during the grueling Florida summer months, with no budget and very few people willing to spend hours out in the mosquito infested, high humidity, fire ant covered garden area. The temperatures average about 95* this time of year with a feels-like estimate of 105 or so.

It's not for the faint of heart, but when you make a promise... you follow through! SO, that said and out of the way. I had a task at hand.

How was I going to fill this empty area with raised beds, few helping hands and zero budget?








Well, fortunately I'm a picker. I'm a dumpster diving, trash loving, roadside warrior!
So, just about the time we had finished tilling up the area, laying down cardboard as a mulch (more trash to treasure) I was really starting to sweat over how we were going to pull off making a field full of raised beds in time for the start of the school year.

Then on my way home ...I saw THIS





Beautiful, right?



Perfectly good, beautifully weathered wood painted white on one side with latex paint. Some may argue that there's a risk of chemical leech from fencing lumber, but I'm not one of those people. I'm just not concerned with it, the wood is significantly weathered and half painted. It's PERFECT for the project!
So I called up a friend to rush over with her trailer in tow and we loaded up the 8 panels. .

We utilized as much of the existing structure as possible, to save on screws. SO we made cuts with a hand held circular saw down the three horizontal beams that hold the slats together, creating panels that were each two slats wide. Creating a board for the bed wall that was about 8 inches in depth. We also cut off the dog eared top piece of each slat to make the beds a bit smaller.

They come together at about 5.5" x 5.5" squares.Plenty large enough for a decent sized plot, 8 inches is a good depth too! So at this point, when we made out first bed... I was stoked! This was going to work!

And here it is! Our first raised bed made from roadside treasure! The muddy ground underneath covered up with some trash picked cardboard to help keep the weeds from reclaiming the area.

Add caption

We quickly got busy making more. 11 more in fact! 10 stayed at the school garden and two came home with us , as a self appointed reward for our hard work :)

We've been busy the last few days filling the whole area with mulch that we had delivered from a local tree trimming company. MORE material that would otherwise have ended up in a landfill, being put to very good use in food production. If this doesn't warm a heart, nothing will!



Next week we'll have a delivery of soil to fill the beds and they'll be ready for planting when the weather finally simmers down a bit.






 This is where the two extra beds found a home, at my new house and in the beginning stages of my personal garden.
You can also see the third salvage creation in the back of the photo. Palate compost bins! We've made three sets of these this summer! One for the school, one for a community demonstration garden we worked on and one for our home garden.

 We used large palates for the schools garden. Food scraps and garden waste will be dumped here and turned regularly. The composting process is pretty speedy when you tend to it and keep turning the material. We lucked out and scored some smaller, hard wood pallets for our home garden so they don't take up as much space.

And here he is, my lovely assistant Warren. He built these compost bins for me and I love him so much for it (among other things).







I'm pretty proud of the progress we've made. No money has been spent on this portion of the garden. Everything was salvaged and we already had the screws. It just goes to show that a nice garden space can be created on any budget! It just takes a sharp eye and the ability to think outside of the box. Pay close attention to the garbage you pass by every day!
You may find your new garden in there someday!

Re-defining granola and protein bars

I haven't posted here in almost a year!
The Florida busy season was kind to me and I've been running around slinging organic veggies and teaching workshops.

Now that the summer is nearly upon us again and things are slowing down, I should have time to blog again!

So I'm starting with my latest kitchen concoction craze!

I've been cutting grains out of my diet and adding plant based proteins to support my new weight lifting lifestyle. These little gems are an example of my Grain-free granola/protein bars!

Thanks to my trusty dehydrator I've been able to make enough variations of this portable and palatable treat to keep from getting bored of it!

The most important ingredient(s) in dehydrated bar making is a binder of some sort. A binder serves as a "glue" to hold all of the ingredients together My two preferred choices are dates and chia seeds. I use chia in every single bar I make and I often skip the dates to cut out some sugary calories. Also, a bar with dates tends to be a more chewy bar where as one without can be dehydrated down to a much crunchier bar.

This particular batch is made from:
1/2 cup chia seeds soaked in one cup water for 20 minutes or until a gel has formed 
one cup raw soaked almonds chopped (I soak them for at least 12 hours and pulse them in the blender or food processor)
one cup raw filberts chopped (you can soak these as well for easier digestion, this batch I didn't soak the filberts because I forgot! Fortunately nuts are forgiving)
1/2 cup dried cranberries ( I get these in the bulk section of the grocery store. i prefer to use dried cherries but they were out of stock this time around)
1/2 cup raw sunflower seeds
1/2 cup raw *LOCAL* honey (I emphasize local here because A- I'm supporting local bee keepers and B- because eating local honey is a great way to combat seasonal allergies)
1 tbs coco powder (the unsweetened baking sort. Using raw cocao nibs is preferred, but again... the store was out so I improvised)
1 tbs pumpkin pie spice

I mixed everything together and spread it and press out on parchment paper on my dehydrator trays at about 1/4 of an inch thick. Things tend to shrink a lot from dehydration so a thick spread is important.

I'm a fairly impatient person so I set my dehydrator to it's max temp, which is 155 degrees and I left it on over night, about 10 hours. Then the next morning I peeled the slabs of granola off the paper and cut them into bars. I wanted them a bit crunchier so I placed the bars back in to dehydrate for a couple more hours.

This is a really great source of protein and essential fats. The chia helps curb hunger and the cranberries help curb a sweet tooth!

The best part about making these bars is the variations are endless. You can substitute nuts and flavorings and fruits into a whole array of consistencies and flavors!

They make a great pre or post work out treat and are a much appreciated addition to a grain free/gluten free diet. YUM!