Like most raw foodies I love freshly made juices and cannot imagine my life without my Breville juicer. But every time I make a juice I feel bad about wasting so much fruit and vegetable pulp.
Spicy raw sun dried carrot flax tomato crackers
Although the pulp is a wonderful enrichment for the compost pile, I always thought of a better way to use it. I usually save some pulp for smoothies, raw soups, dips and desserts. Last weekend, however, I "manufactured" wonderful raw crackers and even more wonderful bread spread. They both taste like summer!
I must admit that it took a little work to make the crackers, but it was fun. And since the weather was magnificent I decided not to use a dehydrator, but to dry them in the sun. After about twenty hours they were ready to eat. Another 5-6 hours in the sun would make them perfectly dry for storage, but I had no intention to store them. I made a very small batch and intended to eat them right away...
A word about herbs and spices. I used dried herbs because they are much more aromatic than the fresh ones. I wasn't sure about onion and garlic. In their raw state they may have been a bit too overpowering and I did not quite know what would happen to my crackers in the plain, hot sun. This would not be a problem if I used the dehydrator, I guess.
Ingredients:
- 1 cup carrot pulp
- 1/2 cup sun dried tomatoes
- 1/2 cup shredded flax seeds
- 1/2 cup water
- 3 Tbsp virgin olive oil
- 1/3 tsp Kosher salt
- 1 tsp hot chili flakes (you may use less)
- 1/2 tsp dried garlic (flakes or powder)
- 1/2 tsp dried onion (flakes or powder)
- 1 Tbsp dried Italian herbs (basil, oregano, thyme)
Pure goodness in a jar!
Carrot, flax, and sun dried tomato bread spread all'arrabiata
- Place all ingredients in a food processor and blend until you receive a nicely malleable "dough." Use the S blade. Depending on how good is your juicer, you may have to add a little bit more water. Some juicers extract so much juice from the veggies that the remaining pulp is almost as dry as flour.
- Taste the "dough" and adjust the amount of herbs and spices to your personal taste.
- Spread small portions of the dough on a sheet of baking paper and, using a spatula, form small crackers that are not too thin and not too thick. This is a bit tricky if you are making raw crackers for the first time. It takes a little experimentation to find out the most optimal thickness. Making a small batch at first is probably the best thing you can do at this point.
- Expose the crackers into a direct sun for as long as it takes for them to dry. If they are not ready by the end of the day, keep them indoors during the night. In this way they will not accumulate any moisture.
- Once you made your crackers, you can store them in a jar. Make sure that they are perfectly dry or they may spoil before you can eat them.
While my crackers were drying in the sun, an idea occurred to me. The "dough" tasted so good that it actually could be eaten just like that. I made another batch of it and added 1/2 cup virgin olive oil. In this way I made a small jar of incredibly delicious bread spread. If I added a bit more water, I would have received a wonderful pasta sauce all'arrabiata. And all this because I first had juice made of two pounds of carrots and did not feel like throwing the pulp away!
Ingredients processed in a food processor
Watching my crackers soak up the energy of the sun, I enjoyed my spicy spread on a slice of sprouted Essene bread. I hope you will, too.
I radiant health, passionately raw - Dominique
Sprouted Essene bread with spicy carrot flax tomato spread
P.S. You can make these crackers using a dehydrator. I decided to dry them in the sun for two reasons. First, the weather was simply too wonderful to waste it just like that. Long before someone invented dehydrator, people were drying different foods in the air. Second, food that is dried in the sun accumulates energy of the sun. Thus produced food nourishes not only the body, but also the human aura.
Dominique Allmon©2013
Dominique Allmon©2013