Celebrating an all-natural lifestyle

Dehydrator Free Raw Vegan Energy Bars

For a good while now, I’ve been meaning to create a homemade raw, vegan energy bar. My primary motivation is economic: this is going to be a lean autumn, and I can no longer afford to drop $$ on Larabars and Lydia’s buckwheat bars (even though I love them both, and would buy them by the bushel if I could afford to). Another motive is culinary: I like challenging myself to new things in the kitchen, and I’ve never really tried a bar recipe before, raw or cooked!

My main motive, though, is the simple fact that I’m a tough customer. I have various dissatisfactions with most of the raw/vegan snack bars I’ve purchased–even ones that I like. Lydias, are heavenly, but they’re outrageously expensive. Larabars taste incredible, and I love munching on them along with a salad or other meal components, but they seem to offer me very little in the satiety department. Raw Revolution bars are great, and they’re calorically dense enough to keep me full, but I find them (and Larabars, for that matter) to be a little sugary.  Sigh. I know I’m a tough critic, but couldn’t someone give me a bar that’s inexpensive, tasty, not too sweet, and also filling?

Last week, when it occurred to me that I might create such a snack for myself, I set out to make my first raw snack bar. For a first try, it was a winner! It isn’t perfect, and I imagine it’ll go through some tweaks in the coming months, but it’s super easy, pretty tasty and satisfies the criteria above. I finally have a homemade snack option that I really like, and that offers me a little financial relief.

Since nuts and dried fruit don’t tend to fill me up the way whole grains do, I used a buckwheat+seed base, and added some raisins and maple syrup for sweetness. With a little ground flax, the bar held together nicely, and here’s the best part: it’s dehydrator free. I used my dehydrator to speed along the drying process, but these bars will definitely set up in the fridge (I tested this theory with a double batch) which means that those of you without dehydrators can toast the buckwheat groats in the oven and then make the bars, too. Cheap, quick, and easy: what’s not to like?

Raw, Vegan Energy Bars (Yields 14)

2 cups soaked and dehydrated buckwheat (instructions here) OR, if you don’t have a dehydrator, use 2 cups of soaked and oven toasted buckwheat
1/2 cup raisins, chopped
1/2 cup raw sunflower seeds
1/2 cup raw pumpkin seeds
6 tbsp maple syrup, brown rice syrup, or agave nectar
3 tbsp ground flax seed
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp coconut oil

1) Mix all ingredients together until evenly coated and distributed.

2) Press mix down in a pan (my baking dish was oddly shaped: 7 x 11), and cover the top tightly with a layer of tin foil. Place in the fridge for an hour, and then cut the dough into bars (you should be able to get 10-14, depending on your pan).

Continue to refrigerate for another few hours, and then serve!

Dehydrator option: If you want these to be super crunchy, or you’d like to speed the process along, dehydrate them at 115 degrees for three hours, stopping midway to cut them into bar shapes: they’ll be warm and very crispy when you’re done.

3) Separate the bars and wrap them tightly. Store in the fridge and freezer till you’re ready to use.

I’ve now got seven of these in the freezer and seven in my fridge, and I look forward to grabbing them for snacks on the go!

Though I don’t usually do nutritional calculations for my recipes, I did want to show you how nicely balanced these guys are. Checkit:

Kcal: 207
Fat: 10.21 grams
Protein: 6.64 grams (double some Larabars!)
Carbs: 27.21 grams
Sugar: 8.92 grams
Sodium: 23.64 grams
Fiber: 3.3 grams

Not bad, eh?

I’ve already snacked on these twice, and I found them pleasantly sating. I think the whole grain+seed combo is key. In any case, you’ll tell me! Let me know if you try this recipe out, and whether or not it’s a hit.

And aside from that, I hope your weeks are off to a great start.

xo

In Praise of Fava Beans

Happy Monday! Glad you’re enjoying the Hippocrates Health Institute video giveaway. It’s been brought to my attention that the video set being offered is worth about $200. So this is quite a steal! If you haven’t entered yet, check it out.

It’s safe to say that all legumes are cherished in the CR kitchen. There’s one bean, however, that holds a special place in my heart. Fava beans–or broad beans, as they English like to call them–top the list of my favorites. Fava beans, which appear in literature dating back to Greco-Roman times, were the only beans eaten by Europeans before they discovered a cornucopia of legumes in the Americas. If we judged beans by size alone, then the unusually plump favas would be kings of the bean world. But it’s not the size alone that makes them so beloved among foodies. They’re also nutty and sweet, and they lend wonderful flavor and texture to late spring and early summer dining. They’re a pain to prepare, but in some ways, the labor intensive process (which can be truncated by cooks in a time crunch) only seems to win them more devotion.

Cooking with fava beans starts with these thick, spotted pods.

Yes, they’re a little creepy looking. Get over it.

To prepare fava beans, you split the pods open and remove the fat beans inside. This actually isn’t easy: the pods don’t just open with a little tug, and you may need a paring knife to help the process along. When you finish, you ought to have a nice little pile of beans for cooking.

To make them edible, you’ll need to par boil them for at least 4-5 minutes in boiling, salted water. I usually give them about 5 minutes, or until they’re tender.

At this point, the beans will be edible, but still hiding under a pale green, waxy coating. If you’re going to serve the beans to guests, I recommend that you remove the coating after giving the beans a little dip in cold water. However, if you’re going to be pureeing them (which, as you’ll see in a moment, I often am), or eating them solo (which again, I often am), it won’t hurt you to leave the waxy coating intact. It’s un-photogenic, but not harmful.

If you are cooking for a crowd, remove the coating. At this point, your beans are ready to be sauteed with olive oil and garlic, to be put in vegetable ragouts, to be served in grain dishes, or whatever presentation you’ve got your heart set on. Lover of bean puree that I am, one of my favorite ways to serve fava beans is in a thick fava puree.

Fava Bean Puree (serves 2-3)

2 cups cooked fava beans, waxy skins removed if possible
3-4 tablespoons high quality olive oil
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 clove garlic, chopped or minced
1/2 tsp salt
Pepper to taste

Place beans, lemon juice, garlic, salt, and pepper in the bowl of your food processor (fitted with the S blade), and run the motor till the mixture is chunky and broken down. With the motor running, add olive oil in a thin stream until the mix is blending well. Stop, scrape the bowl, and process again, repeating the process until the puree is totally smooth and uniform (it’s exactly like making hummus).

You’ll have the best results with the puree if you work with fava beans that are still warm from cooking.

You’ll notice that this is one of the few recipes I ever add garlic to. I don’t always, but I do find that it enhances the flavor in a positive way. (It also reminds me of the way my Greek mama and Yaya like ‘em!)

The finished puree should be bright green and fragrant. Garnish with a little lemon zest or fresh herbs, and serve as a dip or spread.

The other way I like to eat fava beans is in a simple vegetable ragout. Look up “ragout” online, and you’ll see that it’s often defined as stew: I personally associate ragouts not with hearty winter dishes, but with light assemblies of spring and summer vegetables. My own ragout recipe–the one I’m about to share–is prepared raw-style, but could just as easily work by steaming the veggies, rather than dehydrating them.

Summer Vegetable Ragout with Fava Beans (serves 1)

2 cups summer vegetables of choice: I used broccoli, summer squash, wax beans, and spinach
1/2 cup fava beans, cooked
1/4 cup fresh parsley, flat or curly
1 tablespoon good olive oil
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 tsp lemon zest
Salt and pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients till evenly coated, and place on a dehydrator sheet. Dehydrate at 115 degrees for about an hour, till the vegetables are tender and much reduced.

What you’ll have is a simple yet delicious sampling of farmer’s market bounty, prepared without fuss. I like to serve my ragout over a bed of grains. In this case, it was millet:

It was a perfect, satisfying, and simple dinner.

You may have noticed that I didn’t bother to remove the waxy skins from the beans. If I had, they’d have looked smoother and more bright. But sometimes we food bloggers can’t concern ourselves too much with the camera, and I had a growling belly.

If you’ve never tackled the mighty fava bean, it’s time to muster up some courage. They bring a lot of personality to a meal, and they also feel substantial (or “meaty,” to use a word I like less), so they’re a great food to serve when you’re cooking vegetarian for non-vegetarian diners. Like most beans, they’re rich in protein, iron, potassium, and fiber, so they make a nourishing meal for everyone. Give either of these dishes a shot, or come up with one of your own. And if you do, come tell me about it!

Tomorrow, I’ll give you a recipe for a “superfood” smoothie (served up with a wink). In the meantime, have a great night!

xo

Raw Breakfast Crepes

Happy (belated) 4th!

This, my friends:

Is why I love July 4th in Manhattan. Period.

You guys didn’t really think I’d let the whole holiday weekend go by without posting a patriotic recipe, did you? Last year’s red, white and blue creation was this:

Berries and raw “whipped cream.” Translation: yum.

This year, I present you with my patriotically colored raw breakfast crepe:

Instant classic!!

Since I’ve been having such tremendous fun coming up with new and improved raw or semi-raw breakfast ideas for you all, I thought I would try my hand at breakfast crepes. Not quite a pancake, yet a little more than a collard leaf, these guys make fancy presentation a cinch.

I’ll admit it, I have tremendous envy for those of you (ahem, Sarah, Tasha, Ricki, Jessica, Lindsay, Ange, Diana, etc.) who are skilled bakers, or those of you (Nelly, Averie, Bitt, Heathy, etc.) who are extraordinary raw “bakers.” I just can’t seem to develop much initiative or patience in this department! My mother resents this fact, and wastes no chance to ask me why I don’t bother making vegan pancakes, muffins, crepes, or waffles for her more often. I guess my annual batch of vegan blueberry pancakes on Mother’s Day each year just isn’t cutting it. Sad face.

Well Mama, this one’s for you. The recipe may not quite be able to match the thin, buttery, Parisian street crepes you so love, but between the raw banana crepe, the homemade (raw) strawberry jam, the BSS “cream,” and the fresh berries, it’s pretty darn close–and without the hassle of crepe pans and candy thermometers! I hope you’ll be as impressed with their tastiness as I was

Gena’s Raw Breakfast Crepes (makes 2 crepes, or 1-2 servings, depending on appetites)

For the crepes:

2 large or 3 small ripe bananas
1 teaspoon ground flax seed

1) Place the banananas and flax in a food processor. Process until the mix is a very smooth liquid.

2) Line two dehydrator sheets with teflex. Pour half of the liquid onto one of them and spread it with a spatula or inverted spatula.

You want to aim for it to be relatively thin (let’s say 1/8 inch). Smooth it into a circular shape; this can be messy, since you’ll make the edges pretty later on. Repeat with the other half of the banana mix on another sheet. Dehydrate at 115 degrees for 3 hours, or until the crepes are totally smooth to the touch (careful, if you check these before they’re ready, you’ll likely mess up the surface! Think of this as drying nail polish: don’t touch it till you’re pretty sure it’s hard enough.)

3) When the crepes are truly ready, remove them from the dehydrator, and very CAREFULLY peel the crepe from the teflex sheet. Trace a perfect circle on the crepe (I used the lid of a pot to do this), and then, using a very sharp paring knife, cut a neat circle out. What’s left will resemble this:

Thin, light, and sweet!

For the strawberry “jam” (NB: this technique was one of my favorite discoveries from my homegirl Sarma’s Raw Food, Real World. She’s a genius, that one!)

1 cup sliced strawberries

1) Place strawberries on mesh lined dehydrator sheets and dehydrate for six hours or so.

When they’re ready, they ought to be shrunken and dry, but clearly still a little plump inside.

2) Transfer strawberries to a food processor fitted with the “S” blade, and process till the mix resembles a messy, textured jam.

For the cream layer:

1 batch banana soft serve

For the filling:

1/2 cup berries of choice

To assemble, lay out a single crepe and top with 1-2 tbsp of the jam.

Over that, spread 1/3 cup banana soft serve.

Finally, top this with 1/2 cup fresh berries. Fold, and serve!

Isn’t it heavenly looking?

After you cut in, you’ll have a mess on your hands. But a tasty mess:

Obviously, these crepes are pretty much the same as homemade fruit leather, so you could absolutely serve them up plain. And they’re a bit more decadent than I tend to like for breakfast, but naturally, it isn’t hard to modify them to suit any sort of breakfast craving. You could cut the sweetness by using less jam or soft serve, or eliminating one or the other. You could also fill these with pudding; I intend to make a chocomole version very, very soon.

What else? How would you like to fill up a banana breakfast crepe? Throw out some ideas, and we’ll see if we can’t come up with more perfect breakfasts.

I hope you all have a nice day off planned. If you’re in NYC, hunker down with some AC and ice. It’s a scorcher out there!

xo

Buckwheat Cereal and Almond Milk

Week after week and month after month, there’s one meal that readers ask me about more than any other: breakfast. This is probably due to the lack of breakfast visibility on CR: I tend to be more interested in my lunch and dinner creations than my morning ones, and so I post far more of those recipes than any other.

Of course, that doesn’t mean I don’t love my morning meals: I do! I simply don’t tend to invest them with much innovation. Oats and oat bran (cooked) are a staple for me, especially in cool months. Smoothies (which I frequently like to blog about) are another morning standard. I love smashed avocado or raw nut butter on sprouted grain toast, and I love baked yams with coconut butter. Sliced bananas with almond milk and ground flax seed are another summertime favorite, as is chia seed pudding. And on days where I’ve got a very early lunch planned, I’ll sometimes drink fresh juice all morning (note, however, that this is atypical, and if I do juice till lunchtime I’ll very consciously add a lot of heft to my later meals). You can find a summary of some of my breakfast favorites here. And there’s nourishing breakfast I love, which I’ve yet to blog about: buckwheaties and almond milk.

I’ve yet to meet a whole grain I didn’t like. But buckwheat, which many consider an “acquired taste,” ranks high among my favorites. Here are some fun facts about buckwheat (which is also known as “kasha” when it’s toasted before cooking):

• Contrary to popular belief (and to its name), buckwheat is not a cereal grain or a wheat product. It’s actually a “fruit seed,” or pseudograin, and it’s thus in the same family as quinoa, wild rice, and amaranth, and suitable for those on gluten or wheat free diets
• Buckwheat (along with millet) is one of the two grains or psuedograins that’s considered to be slightly alkaline before entering the body
• Buckwheat is a fine source of linoleic (Omega-6) fatty acids, B vitamins, eight essential amino acids, folic acid, and magnesium
• One cup of cooked buckwheat provides four grains of insoluble fiber, which means it’s an excellent food for aiding in elimination!
• Some studies suggest that buckwheat can be useful in managing blood sugar and cholesterol
• Buckwheat is rich in plan lignans, which have mild estrogenic properties and can be beneficial for some women
• Buckwheat has been shown in lab studies to help colonies of friendly bacteria flourish in the gut

Cool, no?

I usually eat buckwheat cooked, but it’s also one of my very favorite grains to sprout (see my wheatberry sprouting post for some how-to info).  And lately, I’m loving raw, dehydrated buckwheat — which I and many fellow raw foods lovers call “buckwheaties” — as a breakfast cereal.

Cold breakfast cereals fall into the category of “dishes Gena didn’t like cooked, but loves raw.” These include soups (I really didn’t become a soup lover until I started playing with raw soups), milk of any kind (thank you, almond milk!), and crackers. Memories of being forced to eat cereal as a kid make me shudder, which is peculiar, since I always did (and still do) adore hot cereals.

Anyway, I digress. Raw granola (like One Lucky Duck’s spectacular blend) and the buckwheaties I’m about to share, coupled with learning how to make fresh, delicious nut milks, changed cold cereal as I knew it. Now, buckwheaties are one of my favorite summer breakfasts, and I hope they’ll soon be one of yours, too!

The procedure is simple. Begin with a cup of raw buckwheat groats. You should be able to find these at any grocery store, but you could also order them here. Immerse them in 3-4 cups filtered water, and let them soak overnight. In the morning, rinse off the water and replace it with fresh water. The soak water ought to have gotten slimy and thick overnight: this is 100% normal, and right.

After another 8-12 hours of soak time, rinse the buckwheat again. It ought to have plumped up to nearly the size it would if you were to boil it. At this point, you could let the grain sprout. But if you want to make buckwheaties, simply lay it on Teflex-lined dehydrator sheets and dehydrate it at 115º for 6-10 hours, or until it’s really dry and crispy. If you don’t have a dehydrator, you can try toasting it lightly in the oven — say at 250º–until it’s dry and crispy.

That’s it! Your buckwheaties will be ready to go. I like to serve about 3/4 cup of them with a big, sliced banana and some fresh nut milk:

And then I like to top it off with some blueberries for color!

It makes for a lovely presentation, even if I’m at my office desk:

Wouldn’t you agree?

So there you are. A raw breakfast that’s appropriate for summer temperatures, but provides the satisfaction and staying power that smoothies sometimes lack. Soon, I’ll show you more uses for buckwheat; it really is a wonderfully versatile grain!

It’s allllmost Friday!

xo

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