Pestos and Crackers

I have a pretty intense grain allergy and a mild coconut allergy. If I eat white bread, my eyes get inflamed and I get asthma; the effects of eating whole grains are much worse--rice in particular. It is not a stomach intolerance, but a respiratory allergy, which is strange, for I don't have hay fever, although my sister, my mother and my nephew all do. One of the best things to come out of the raw foods movement is the marketing of non-grain crackers made of seeds and nuts. However, they are very pricey. All the sweet cookie type raw things are filled with coconut, so that makes me keen on doing my own thing.

Brigitte is big on flax and flax crackers. I'm not so keen on flax, but flax does make good crackers, so I'll start with the flaxseed cracker recipe.

Flaxseed, or linseed, is (yes, you guessed it) the stuff that the artists' oil is made of. It is a cheap oil when it is made for industrial uses. The flaxseed oil for edible purposes, is extremely expensive and very volatile, so it is found in health food refrigerators in brown plastic containers and hard to eat before it goes bad. It is very high in omega 3 fatty acids, as high as cod liver oil. People eat flax seeds for the same purpose, but they are very mucilaginous (slimy) and used for constipation. I'm not keen on slimy food. I found out that chia seed is higher in omega 3s and easier to eat. It forms a gel when wet and is very like tapioca, but it is not as slimy.

However, sliminess holds the crackers together.

You can see here that I've added a little water to some flax seed (golden kind is best.) Do not cover the flax seeds with water or add the same amount water, but as little as possible. Here you can see what happens after about ten minutes, you can stand a spoon in the bowl!

Now Brigitte just adds kelp to the flax and spreads it out on a dehyrator sheet. I prefer to add some pesto to the crackers, but the variations are endless. Before I go on to show you how to finish the crackers, here's one of my pesto recipes.

I take about half to a cup of walnuts and soak them in enough water to cover for about five hours. Overnight is okay.
You can see from this that I've taken the walnuts and mashed them up. You can use a blender, but it's hard to get the nuts to grind without extra water. I like a mortar and pestle for grinding nuts. I've tried to use nut grinders or grain grinders like the Bi0mühle variety, but the mortar and pestle works just fine. It takes a while, but it's kind of fun and quieter and, well just peaceful. I love these Asian mortars that are ceramic and have groves cut in the clay to rub the nuts (or leaves) against. They work very well and are surprisingly easy to clean.

Then I gather my greens. I use pestos to add in greens to my diet that are strong tasting. The basil covers up the taste of almost everything. Dill pestos are also good. When I make pesto, I don't use all basil: it's way too expensive and I find it very strong tasting, sometimes bitter. I've found that about half and half basil and parsley is a great combination in that these two strong flavored greens compliment each other and make for a better taste. When you use basil, stay away from the flower buds. They are very strong. I assemble all my leaves like this because I then:

Cut them! I've found that cutting works better than chopping and I don't have a food processor or blender. Again, it doesn't take that long, is quiet, doesn't use electricity and is easy unless you have arthritis. I've discovered that I can monitor my own arthritis in that if I cut and my hand hurts, I've got to do liver detox (more olive oil and greens, less cooked food.) Pretty soon that big bowl of greens is a quarter the size. Do this first, before you dump the greens into the walnuts.

After some mushing, which can take a long time or not, depending on how "smooth" you want your pesto, you have something edible. As I grind the leaves with the walnut mix (pine nuts, pecans, almonds, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds--anything works) I add olive oil. I also add dried nettles or other dried herbs that are good for me but not so fun to eat. If you are adding pesto to crackers, keep the olive oil to a minimum. If you want it for a squash dish like a sauce, add a lot of oil. I can't eat garlic, but, by all means, bring on the garlic if you like it! To get the Parmesan taste, you have to add salt. I don't like yeast, but some people swear by it to mimic the cheese taste. If you have access to raw Parmesan, go for it.

Okay, I added about half my pesto to my flax mix and added in about 1/4 cup of kelp granules. The powder is vile--use the granules. Kelp is also mucilaginous. I also added caraway seeds to this mix.

I don't own a dehydrator. Too expensive, and again my hubbie can't stand the noise. Also, even at low temperatures, your house will smell like the seashore when you dry out seaweeds. I got this plastic roll-up tray from the hardware store for $3.00. I found out very fast that drying food in a low-heat dehydrator was a way to get the mice to be friendly. It's also cockroach heaven. Nothing like finding mice turds or cucurachas on your crackers! If you live in a very warm and humid climate, you may want to dry out your crackers in the refrigerator. If you live in a dry climate, let the air do the work for you and don't worry about getting a dehydrator for your (expensive) raw kitchen. I put this sheet of crackers before a fan and they were dry in 24 hours.

Spread the mix as thin as you can. When the mix is tacky, but not dry, go ahead and cut the crackers with a knife. A bit tricky, but not as tricky as trying to make crackers out of the gluey, sticky mess they are when wet!

Be patient. You want your crackers to be crackers, not crumbly bits of moist seedy stuff. Takes about 24-36 hours depending on the room temperature, whether you use a fan or not, or whether you live in Oregon or Colorado. Stuff in the fridge takes longer to dry. You might get creative and hook up a fan in your fridge!


Here are my crackers. I put some avocado on them and made them "artistic" with some peppers and olives. Seed or nut crackers and avocado is a very filling, high-fat, meal that is great for winter.

Bon appétit!

Root Chakra Salad

Over the years, I've experimented with many salads. I get tire of cookbooks that put cheese on salads or treat them like side dishes. For me, a salad is just an interesting pile of veggies that taste good mixed together.

This salad has many variations. The key to some of food enjoyment is presentation, and what better way to present than to play with color! I call this salad "Root Chakra Salad" because it is a magenta salad which is the color of the first chakra. It is also the color of iron. If you feel anemic, this is a great salad to "perk" you up. It is also a warming salad for winter.

I've done this salad three ways. I'll list the ingredients for you and then the dressings. The first time I did it, I used red sauerkraut. Here is that recipe.

One small red cabbage (or half a large one) grated
1 tbs dill seed
1 tbs Celtic salt
1 tbs raw apple cider vinegar

Knead the cabbage and other ingredients, put into a jar (don't put a lid on it) wait a few days until the kraut has the taste you like. Some people get serious about kraut and pack it in a ceramic container all winter--I like it fairly fresh.

I then mix:

1 cup kraut
1 small beet, grated
lemon to taste
1 tsp honey
1 tsp dulse
1 tsp powdered nettles
1 tsp soaked black sesame seeds
1 tbs olive oil

A good variation on this salad is to use freshly grated red cabbage.

1 cup grated red cabbage
1 small beet, grated
1 tbs apple cider vinegar
1 tsp dulse
1 tsp powdered nettles
1 tsp dill seed (or caraway)
1 tsp soaked black sesame seeds (or soaked sunflower seeds)
1 tbs olive oil

You can also substitute (or add) red or purple kale, red lettuce, purple beet leaves, purple flowers, red celery, or other dark red or purple leaves. I don't usually mix beets with any kind of fruit, but elder berries taste good in this salad.

The salad above is:

1/2 cup grated red cabbage
1/2 cup red leaf lettuce
1/2 cup spinach
1 tsp apple cider vinegar (I can't eat lemon)
1 tsp powdered nettles
1 tsp dulse
1 tsp caraway seeds
1 tbs olive oil
1 stalk celery

I find the beets sweet enough without honey, but honey makes this salad good enough for kids.

Enjoy!

How to Eat a Salad

I hope you're laughing! I would have, but yes, I've learned to prepare salads.

Susun Weed did a good job of showing how thick the cell walls are on plants. Some nutritionists don't advise depending on greens for calcium and other minerals unless they are cooked because they can't be digested unless the cell walls are destroyed.

I always sit down when I hear things like this and think, in my usual way, "but then why do we have teeth?" And then I hear that apes are not cows and not cats and only meant to eat fruit. And I have to sit down again.

The favorite way for a chimp to eat leaves is to roll up a bunch of leaves into a pack and then chew and suck on them for an hour or so. Like gum or chaw. That seems like a very logical, very practical way of getting out all those nutrients, mixing them with enzymes and not eating all that cellulose. Cool. Now should we all start chewing leaves and spitting out the dead pack into spittoons in our offices? Hm.

I hear of many people eating blended salads. My husband is not big into noise, so no blenders at our house. And I did learn that chopping up salad greens was very bad because chopping destroyed the cell walls and turned the greens brown. Hm, I say, in my very Anne-ish way. Chopping destroys the cell walls. Chopping is good.

So I started cutting up my salads with scissors. I'm not a good chopper. But I have a wide, shallow dish for salad, and cut off the leaves of kale, lettuce and what have you into this dish and then go at it with the scissors until I can eat it with a spoon. Then I use the ol' grater. I grate beets or other roots or raw winter squash or summer squash or green papaya and put them in salad or use them as a rice substitute in a nori sheet. I also grate stuff as a pasta substitute and put pestos on top.

Pesto is another great way to eat a salad. I use a mortar and pestle and mash up herbs and greens that go a long way (strong tasting) like dill and basil and mix them half and half with dandelions or nettles or parsley, mix in a bit of olive oil, maybe some soaked nuts or seeds and, voila! pesto.

But the key to eating veggies is to masticate them into almost a juice by the time you swallow them. You can chew for a long time, but if you're rushed, used the scissors.

Recipe for a iron-rich salad

Three red lettuce leaves (or dandelion)
Three red kale leaves
A few sprigs of parsley
A tablespoon of dried dulse flakes
A grated beet
A teaspoon of dried nettles
Dill or other herb to taste
A tablespoon of sprouted sunflower seeds (or sesame seeds)
Some olive oil.

I cut up the greens very fine, and find that this combination of greens and such is very mild. I've found that certain strong-tasting herbs and greens seem to cancel each other out, or blend together to make a very palatable salad.

Here is my favorite pesto recipe

A cup of basil
A cup of parsley
A cup of dandelion greens
A teaspoon dried nettles
A half-teaspoon kelp granules
A tablespoon of some kind of soaked nuts (walnuts, sunflower seeds, pine nuts, etc.)
Olive oil.

I can't eat garlic, but if you can add it. I cut up the greens and them mash them in the mortar after I have mashed up the nuts with a little oil. Keep adding oil until you get the paste consistency you desire.

This is delicious on a cup of grated butternut squash.

Pestos are a great way of getting greens into kids and other people who won't eat nettles or dandelions or such. The basil is strong enough to hide the taste of almost anything. Basil is so strong that I usually cut it with another less expensive green anyway like parsley.

Enjoy!