Lemony Webbles

week 12 - chocolate hazelnut tart

As promised...

Dessert.

Fresh out of the freezer.

Yes, those are raw cookie crumbs. And I must say, they were a pain to make.

So far, I've only tasted the batter and cookie crumbs separately, but they were DEEPLY good!

If you've been reading along with this raw food adventure and you're in the area, I invite you to come over and taste this beauty with me. Please, please, please! Just send me a note letting me know when you can come over. I'll be back from mom's Sunday afternoon.

Here's how to make one of your own:

chocolate cookie crumbs from Everyday Raw by Matthew Kenney

4 c cocoa powder
4 c oat flour
1 1/2 t sea salt
1 c maple syrup
1 c agave
2 T coconut oil, melted
1 1/2 t vanilla

(Note: I halved this recipe (4 cups of cocoa!?!), used some honey to replace half of the sweeteners because that's what I had on hand, and replaced about a sixth of the cocoa powder with cacao powder.)

In a large bowl, mix dry ingredients thoroughly. Add remaining ingredients to dry ingredients. Mix well with hands. Crumble into small pieces (no bigger than 1/2 inch) onto dehydrator screens. Dehydrate 3 days. After dehydrating, process in food processor until small crumb consistency is reached (mine are a little big). Sift to separate crumbs from flour. Crumbs should be no larger than 1/4 inch. Store crumbs and flour in separate containers in refrigerator.

When that mess is done, the rest is easy. Just press, mix, and pour.

chocolate hazelnut tart

crust
2 c chocolate cookie crumbs
1/4 c coconut oil, melted

Mix coconut oil into cookie crumbs until crumbs hold together (Mine never did, oh well). Press a very thin layer in tart pan and chill in freezer before filling.

filling
1 1/2 c cashews, soaked
1/2 c + 2 T water
1/2 c + 2 T agave
1/2 c coconut oil, melted
1/2 t vanilla
1/2 t sea salt
1 c + 2 T cocoa powder
3/4 t hazelnut extract (I couldn't find this anywhere, but I had a few hazelnuts, so I threw them in with the cashews.)

Blend all ingredients in Vita-Mix (or your blender, if you're like me, and are content to have slightly lumpy tarts) until very smooth. Fill cookie crumb crust and chill in freezer overnight. Remove tart from pan and wrap in plastic wrap. Store in freezer. (Eat with friends.)

it'll be worth the wait

The final week of this raw food experiment, week 12, will be about the ending to all great meals. Dessert! And you can do quite a lot of amazing with raw desserts, I've heard tell. I'm working on a chocolate hazelnut tart that looks pretty spectacular. It takes 5 days to make because the crust has to be dehydrated for 4 days just to get started. I'll post it up Friday. And I'm bringing you a piece, mom! Happy belated Mother's Day!

week 11 - salad love and corn chips

OK, this isn't really a recipe as much as an exclamation about how exciting it is to get back to eating what you grow.

First, I picked some little lettuce and spinach leaves and a couple chives and oregano into a bowl of water.

Then I rinsed it off really well, ran it through the salad spinner, and assembled my ingredients.

I rubbed my plate with smashed garlic to get some of the oil on it.

Then the greens, and all the good stuff on top, lemon juice, olive oil, chives, and fresh oregano...yum!

I like eating salad with chopsticks...all the better to stuff large bites into my mouth!

That was a very happy day.

Jenny and I made some fun swamp juice (as she lovingly called it) this week, actually called Sweet Green Juice, but, as so often happens with veggie juices, it turned out the color of a ripe swamp. It was exclamatory in its brisk, sour, fresh taste in that it makes you exclaim loudly after drinking it. Wow!

We also made some yummy Golden Tortilla Chips in the dehydrator. It was hard to keep them crispy, but they had a great sweet flavor from the corn, sort of like Sunchips.

Golden Tortilla Chips (from Matthew Kenney's 'Everyday Raw')

1 3/4 c flax meal
4 c frozen corn, thawed
1 1/3 c water
2 1/2 T olive oil
1 T cumin
3/4 small red onion
1 clove garlic
1/4 t sea salt + more for sprinkling
1 T + 1 t lime juice
Pinch cayenne
2 t chili pepper

Blend everything except the flax meal and chili powder in the blender until smooth. Mix in remaining ingredients and spread thinly on dehydrator sheets. Dehydrate 30 min, then score into chip shapes. Sprinkle with salt and dehydrate 12-24 hours.

Sweet Green Juice

2 cucmbers
2 carrots
2 apples
1/2 c parsely
1/2 c mint
1 stalk celery
1/2 inch piece ginger
1 lemon, peeled

Shove it all in a juicer. Woo-weee! Now that's a juice!

shiny happy people

Spring is bringing out the best in us:

Maya learned to ride her bike really well, and can even pull Teresa in the trailer. Go Maya!

Layli modeling Georgia's crochet creation for Nana. Isn't she lovely?

I'm so happy to be in the garden, digging in, so grateful that it's spring!

Georgia giving Teresa some lap time. Sorry for the smudges, I had to sneak to get this one and actually took it through the window.

Teresa did some dramatic poses in a series. This one's my favorite.