Grain free, Gluten Free Buckwheat: Simple Flatbread

 Buckwheat is a remarkable food. It's versatile, highly nutritious and delicious!
Contrary to it's name, buckwheat is not wheat at all, it's actually a fruit seed that is related to rhubarb and sorrel. It's high in manganese, magnesium and fiber and low in calories.
One cup of buckwheat contains only about 155 calories!







You can find raw buckwheat groats in the bulk or dry goods section of your higher end grocery store like whole foods or earth origins. It's very affordable at around $2 per pound.

This recipe is really simple and can be used as a sturdy pizza crust or cut into flat bread for a side dish, sandwiches or just toasted with cheese.

 What you'll need:
-One cup raw buckwheat groats
-One cup filtered water
-One large, humanely sourced egg (preferably from a happy, backyard chicken)
-Parchment Paper
-A cookie sheet
-A glass bowl or jar
-Sea Salt and herbs of your choice. I'll be using fresh rosemary and home made garlic sea salt

 your going to need to start at least 3-4 hours ahead of time because you'll need to soak the groats for quite a while. You CAN soak them over night, you really don't need to worry about over soaking them. They do sprout pretty quickly which is a good thing. So if you'd like to take it the extra mile, go ahead and give them a full 24 hours of soaking. Sprouted groats are more nutritious and easier to digest! Soak them in about 3/4 of a cup of filtered water. They'll expand and get a slimy, sort of gross texture to them but that's ok too! You'll see that they expand quite a bit and soak up all of your water, like in the photo here, before soaking on the left and after soaking on the right.

Scoop them out into your blended and add the remaining 1/4 cup of filtered water along with your egg, herbs and sea salt. I like to use about a half tsp of salt. Blend until smooth, or 2-3 minutes depending on how awesome your blender is.

Pour the slurry onto a parchment lined cookie sheet. It going to be a liquid about the consistency of pancake batter.
Spread it around so it's about a 1/4 inch or less thick and place into the oven, preheated to 350°
Bake for 20 minutes.

You'll have a sheet of flatbread that's perfect to use for pizza! Top it with your favorite pizza goodies and re-bake it for 15-20 minutes!

You can also cut it into triangles and use it in place of pita or traditional flat bread. 


It's surprisingly fluffy and sturdy enough to handle the bulkiest of pizza toppings without falling apart! The flavor is slightly nutty on it's own but any fresh herbs you use will really pop! I also like to toast it as a breakfast snack with organic butter or jelly.

Seriously, if you've been looking for an easy to make, delicious and grain free bread alternative you've GOT to try this out! If you do, please let me know how you like it!
Enjoy!

 

Florida Gardening: Tropical Pumpkin AKA Calabasa

 Last Summer I discovered an adorable little pumpkin.
One that grows and thrives in our harsh, tropical climate while producing an abundance of tasty, fast growing gourds.

It's called Calabasa, or Tropical Pumpkin! I prefer to call it Tropical pumpkin just because I REALLY love being able to say I grow my own pumpkins! It's not something you hear often in SW Florida (Zone 9)

I purchased a small sack of seeks from ECHO in North Fort Myers on a whim, while I was attending one of their fantastic Farm Days!

I planted 4 seeds mid August and three sprouted, slowly forming a little circle of Pumpkin vine over the next couple of weeks.

Cute, right?! It started sending out these lightening fast growing tendrils every which way! I had to start training it to stay out of other beds and pathways. Every day these vines would gain a foot or so of growth.

Well, once a couple of summer time rains fell and really got this beast going it was all over the place! And that's a good thing! It's beautiful and broad leaves make a really nice ground cover.

By Thanksgiving we had enough mature pumpkins to trade with friends and family and to make some of the BEST pumpkin pie I've ever tasted! In the beginning I was very impatient and I picked them while they were still green. Which led to seed saving failure. The squash themselves were still totally great for eating, but the seeds weren't viable.

So I learned to let them stay on the vine until they started to blush and turn yellowish pinkish. Almost the color of a butternut squash but still some green on the skin.

Now I have seeds to share with my Florida gardening friends and family too! Which is very exciting to me! I'm so in love with this squash that I want to share it with everyone!

During the short days in the winter the vine died back a little. We got a touch of frost that killed off a lot of leaves. I just left everything to die where it stood and re-nourish the ground with the composting, fallen leaves.

In late march/ early April the vines came back with a vengeance! Here it is mid March and I've just harvested 8 squash of all different sizes!

Once I planted these seeds back in August I have not had to feed the vines once. They grow all over the place and I water them with everything else. They need zero special attention!

They do seem to like  morning shade and afternoon evening sun. I have a vine in a different location that was full sun and it really didn't do nearly as well.

It's a simple and very rewarding crop! The only pest I've encountered has been a rat here or there. They like to slip in at night and nibble just enough to wreck a perfectly good squash! Very aggravating, but not such a nuisance that I've needed to retaliate... yet.

I like to cut the tops off like a jack-o-lantern and scoop out the seeds. Then I roast them for about an hour. This makes it so you can either eat it as is, with some maple syrup or butter, or you can scoop out the flesh to blend into a puree for other recipes. Treat it like you would any large squash! It makes amazing soup, bread, pie and stands alone as a very yummy side dish!

Upcycle whimsey and imagination play!

I'm really stoked about sharing my upcycled project from today!

A Pallet Theater Playhouse!

It was so easy and everything I used is stuff I had laying around the house and yard. The little guy LOVES it and keeps pulling the curtains back and saying "Dun da da DAAA!"

I want an adult sized on!

Cashew "Milk" and "Cheese"

Home made cashew milk is full of protein and micro nutrients! It has a higher protein content than store bought cashew milk and its a raw food! You can add flavoring or sweetener to your home made cashew milk, like stevia, cinnamon or vanilla extract or you can use it plain.

Use cashew milk in vegan recipies like soups or use it in your morning cereal as a healthful alternative to dairy products!

Cashew milk is made pretty much the exact same way as Almond Milk and other nut milks.

The only difference is you really don't need to soak the cashews as long as you'd soak harder nuts like almonds. Over night is good, but just a few hours will be fine.

Here's what you'll need:

-Blender or food processor
-Nut bag or nylon stocking
-one cup RAW cashews
-2 cups filtered water
-A large drinking cup and a bowl or two

 You're going to want to soak your nuts a good, long while. I prefer to soak them over night but, in a pinch, you can soak them for just a couple hours and get nearly the same results.
It's very important that you use raw nuts!

So, Soak your raw cashews in the 2 cups of water for several hours

 After soaking, pour your nuts and water into your blender or processor and blend until smooth. This doesn't take long. Only about 2 minutes or so.

 If you don't have a nut bag, which I do not... (they're sort of pricey) You can use a new, unworn (please!), nylon stocking, I got some black knee highs to keep in my kitchen for these sorts of things.

Place the nylon in a large drinking cup and pull it around the rim of the cup like in this photo--->
This will allow you to pour the slurry you've made into the nylon easily.

 Then, over a large bowl, squeeze all of the liquid from the pulp. Don't be shy! Squeeze the bageebas out of it! The nylons are strong!
Remember to rinse out your nylon immediately and hang it to dry, or toss it in with a load of laundry. You don't want it to get moldy! You can use them over and over again.

 When you're done, turn the stocking inside out into another bowl and save your well drained cashew pulp for this next recipe!

So now you have cashew milk ready for flavoring, if you choose,  and for eating! And you also have your pulp!

Put your pulp back into your blender with a garlic clove, sea salt, white pepper and just about a 1/4 cup of the cashew milk.
Blend until smoothe and you have a perfect "Cheese" dip or spread for crackers or veggies!

If you heat this up and add more cashew milk back into it you can also make a nice, thick sauce that I like to use as a vegan, Alfredo alternative! It's great on zucchini noodles and you can skip the heating up part for raw meals!