Recipe: Raw Dried Flax Crackers

I've been on a mostly-raw-food diet since Monday Mar 23. Trying to get healthy. It's hard to fulfill my goals and not even be able to walk half a block without stopping to catch my breath!

Since others have expressed an interest on how to eat "raw foods" with stored foods, I'll start posting recipes when I've perfected them. I'll be using a lot of dehydrated fruits/veggies, nuts and flax.

This picture shows the ingredients for these two types of flax crackers. The ground flax seeds container was about $10 at Sam's. For the bowl to the left, Chocolate Flax Crackers, I used the cocoa powder a couple of bucks at Kroger/King Soopers and on top of it is the packet of stevia. For the bowl to the right, Savory Flax Crackers, I used the onion and garlic powder, $.50 each at Wal-Mart.

Savory Flax Crackers
Ingredients:
3 scoops ground flax seeds
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 cup water

Directions:
In a small to medium mixing bowl, add the ground flax seeds and the onion/garlic powder. Mix well to combine. Add the water and stir. Leave it for 15 minutes, stir again. Leave it for 30 minutes and stir again. It will be very gooooey and gelatinous. That's ok - that's exactly what you need to happen. At this point you can add a tablespoon of flour (rice, wheat, etc.). Prepare your dehydrator with the teflex sheet. If you don't have one, take two pieces of plastic wrap and criss cross over the sheet. Cut a hole for your dehydrating mechanism/insert thingy (see picture). Spread the goo over the plastic or dollop into circles/crackers. Dehydrate until dry to the touch. Turn them over (carefully!) and dry until crisp. Could be 8 hours.

Sweet Chocolate Flax Crackers
Ingredients:
3 scoops ground flax seeds
1 tablespoon pure cocoa powder
1 packet stevia
1 cup water

Directions:
Follow the directions for the Savory Flax Crackers - combine the flax with the chocolate and stevia before adding water. The rest of the directions are the same. For more of a chocolate cookie, I add a bit more water and some ground almonds/almond flour. Dehydrate till crisp.

Enjoy!

Copyright (c) 2009 VP Lawrence-Williams

Raw Food Diet on Stored Foods?

My health is horrible. I eat junk, even though I'm supposed to be getting healthy by changing my eating habits. I'm a cheeseburger and pizza junkie. I love cookies and cakes and ice cream. I try to eat a lot of stored foods, but I need to get out of the MickeyD's cheeseburger/Big Mac mindset to enjoy them. I'm a really picky eater; I don't like most cooked vegetables but I'll eat them raw. However, the taste of them changes when they are dehydrated, which is necessary to make them last over the Winter.

A wonderful lady, Susan Schenck, is considering donating her book "The Live Food Factor" to our blog contest but that got me thinking. I did the raw food diet a few years ago, and felt great while on it. Then I slipped and couldn't get back on for various reasons.

Now, I'm wondering. Is it possible to get back on the raw food diet and actually survive on it via stored foods if confined for a long while?

I went over my list of stored foods. Here's what we store that qualifies as raw:
-dehydrated fruits
-dehydrated vegetables
-beans/peas/lentils/soybeans
-rice and corn pasta
-rice? cornmeal? oats?
-pre-ground flax seeds (40 oz container-expires 2 years unless opened)
-frozen walnuts, pecans, almonds, cashews, peanuts

I'm sure I missed a few things.

And I'd have to grind the vegetables into a powder (all-vegg powder) to make them palatable (to me).

Our garden can/has produced the following, which we can either freeze (not preferred in case of loss of electricity) or dehydrate:
-peanuts
-corn
-sunflowers
-eggplant
-beans, including string and soybeans
-peas
-tomatoes
-okra
-peppers (bell and hot)
-greens
-radishes
-carrots
-etc.

On our homestead we'll plant lots of fruit and nut trees so we'll have those to freeze or otherwise store (almonds, pecans, walnuts, filberts, apples, pears, nectarines, etc.). Bushes of cherries, blueberries, cranberries and elderberries. Vines of grapes and passionfruit.

Plus we have growing inside year round a couple of tomato plants. In the Winter we grow carrots, radishes and greens like lettuce and spinach. We just started adding sprouts to our indoor "gardening". Could possibly add blueberry to year-round. Possibly strawberries. If we get/build a house with a big south-facing room with lots of windows, we could grow even more, like the lime/lemon/tangerine tree, banana tree plants, and more.

So... I could, depending on the availability, eat a fresh salad every day from our indoor and outdoor garden with a variety of veggies to go in it. I could eat my special crackers (below) with a variety of nut butters, salsa, guacamole, or raw hummus. Fresh or rehydrated fruit drizzled with homestead honey. Gazpacho (raw soup with tomatoes, cucumbers, etc.).

When I was full-on gluten-free a couple of years ago, I learned how to make a raw flax cracker. (Will post recipe soon - I made one that was unbelievably delicious.) Could grind the beans/peas/lentils/rice and add as "flour" to the cracker, along with the cornmeal/corn masa. Maybe even oats. Could add powdered veggies - the ones I don't like - and spices/herbs to change up the taste. This is a cracker that's dehydrated so it would qualify as raw.

I'm going to look into this and start posting raw-recipes as soon as possible. Perhaps this would help my myriad of symptoms if I'd just get off the junk food. Does a diet that has 85% raw food interest anyone besides me? Vikki