Cultured Cashew Cheese

This is a cheese press that I normally use for cultured raw goat's cheese. This is the first time I'm using it to press a cultured cashew cheese.

I'm so excited to be making this cultured cheese, because I was sad to think that if I jumped into this raw diet I would have to give up making my coat's cheese. I hadn't considered that one might use a culture with nuts to make a cheese. Roxanne Klein uses rejuvalac, made from wheat. I didn't want to do that. I've used young coconut kefir and it worked beautifully.

Soak 3C of raw cashews for 10-12 hours. Drain.
Add 1/4C. young coconut kefir
1/2tsp. Celtic sea salt
Blend in high speed blender until smooth.
Line a sieve with butter muslin (thicker than cheese cloth). Cover the top with a lettuce leaf, leave to ripen in a warm place for at least 12 hours. Excess liquid will drop out.
Remove the cheese and shape into a log or round or put into a cheese press if you have one. Put it in the refrigerator to firm up. Use within three days. (See if you can actually hoard it away that long). This cheese is delicious!

I've since tried some variations. One was to put the cultured cashew cheese in the blender with red peppers and jalapeno pepper to create a spicy cheese with a zingy red-orange colour. 

This is some interesting research:  Comparing raw and non raw cashews

"Here's a fascinating insight from Habib Bailey, a leader in the raw food movement when it was in its infancy:- I imagine that many of you raw folks have been told that all cashews are not truly raw, because they've been heated in the shell before being opened. Well, I'm here to give you some news that will be very well received by everyone who loves the rich, creamy consistency that cashews bring to many delicious raw recipes.

A long time ago, I also heard that cashews are heated in the shells. I did find out that it is true. But rather than simply leaving it at that, and never eating them again, I reasoned that whether they were truly raw or not depended on whether or not enough heat made it through the shell, to actually alter the nuts themselves. You see,the reason they are heated, is that there is a caustic substance coating the inside of the shell, that will burn the hands of those who open them for processing. They are briefly heated in order to disperse this natural, caustic agent. I heard that the heating didn't need to be very long, in order to accomplish this. This is what caused me to begin questioning how much heat actually made it through the shell, and whether it was of sufficient duration to actually
alter the nut.

So I devised an experiment:

I began making nut cheeses from all different kinds of nuts I could find, using a very simple recipe I have devised to make a cultured nut cheese. Whenever I tried a particular nut cheese, I would make two versions: one batch I would make from nuts labelled "raw" and the other batch I would make from nuts that were NOT labelled raw. For each kind of nut, I gave it several tries, to see if my results were the same each time. And guess what? My results were ALWAYS the same...

The results....

Nut cheeses made from raw nuts virtually always came out right. They tasted good, and had the kind of "pleasantly sharp" taste you get from the growth of healthful, beneficial bacteria. Similar to the kind that grows in good, live sauerkraut.

On the other hand, the nut cheeses made from nuts which were NOT labelled as raw, ALWAYS ended up spoiling. There was in every single case, a bad smell, and a bad taste. They were full of putrefactive bacteria, and had to be thrown away.

NOW FOR THE CLINCHER: If you make the same conclusion from these results that I did, you would also reason that if a nut cultured properly, then it MUST have been raw....

Well, I will tell you: every single batch of cashew cheese that I have ever made from cashews that were labelled as raw, ALWAYS cultured properly, and came out tasting and smelling very, very good... with no putrefactive odor or taste at all. In fact, whenever I have given samples of this cheese to people who haven't tasted it before, their eyes widen, and they have to have the recipe...

AND just like all the other kinds of nuts tested, every batch of cashew cheese made from cashews NOT labelled as raw, ALWAYS SPOILED.

So the only possibility that makes sense to me, is that although cashews are most definitely heated in the shells, that not enough heat makes it through the shell, and not for a sufficient duration, to detrimentally alter the cashew nut itself.

I have shared the story of my "experiment" and conclusions with many raw food teachers. Usually they are very glad to hear of it, because the cashew is an extremely versatile, tasty nut." by Habib Bailey

I 'm glad I waited on making this cheese until my order from a raw food company arrived. I used cashews that are organic, truly raw and hand cracked, from Indonesia. The batch of cashews I bought before that tasted of salt, even though they were supposed to be raw, and I don't know if they would have cultured very well.

Cultured Cashew Cheese Variations

When I first made cultured cashew cheese, I fell back on my cultured goat cheese ways and put the cashew cheese in a press. Since then, I've been making variations that are different in both flavour and shape.

This is a lemon zest and cracked peppercorn cheese. The lemon zest and peppercorns were folded into the cheese and then it was formed into a ball, just by using thin spatulas. Because I was celebrating the return of the sun after a week of rain, I gave it a sun ray crown and brought out the citrus locally called "The Hand Of Buddha".

It was delicious with olive tapenade, hummus, salsa and tomatoes. I still have some of the basil oil that I made the other day. It is holding its colour nicely, and still fun to drizzle on the plate.

The second variation is a red pepper and chipotle pepper with smoked paprika and herbs.

This shape is traditionally a goat cheese shape, but since I have the form I'm using it. I partially dehydrated the red pepper that I put on the top of the cheese (in the bottom of the mould).

The next time I make this I'm going to partially dehydrate the red pepper that I add to the cheese as well, because the moisture in the red pepper makes the cheese softer than I would have liked. It still tastes and spreads well, but it was too soft to pick up the veins of the banana leaf in the mould. That would have been a nice touch.....next time.....

The piccante cheese was good pared with salad and the, by now, ubiquitous flax chips. Just before lunch, the sun slid under a cloud and as we were finishing, the rain began. Blessed rain! We need it.

So, there you have it: two kinds of pepper cheese, variations on a theme.

Cultured Cashew Cheese and Crackers

Ultimate Vegan Cheese and Crackers (so far). This recipe incorporates the raw cashew cheese, dragon snaps, spicy cashews and basil oil.

Assembly: Chop 1/2 C. sun dried tomatoes that have been marinated in olive oil, with half a cup pitted kalamata olives and a couple of handsful of fresh basil leaves. (basil should be around 2 Tbsp. when minced.) All approximate, don't fret about it.

I'm leaving the cheese whole, to serve family style.
For individual servings, cut in four or six and arrange.
Press the olive/basil/tomato mixture into the sides of the cheese. Cut tomatoes into wedges and arrange around the cheese.
Add micro greens. Sprinkle with spicy pine nuts. Drizzle basil oil around. Stick some dragon snap sails into this cheese ship. Enjoy making a space monster. Whatever makes you happy.

Serve quarters and have extra dragon snaps, tomatoes, greens and basil oil to drizzle at the table.

The texture and taste are fabulous. I wasn't expecting this.

Cashew cheese is a hit in this house! The Dragon Snaps were a spicy foil for the creamy cultured cheese.The basil oil is luminescent green and fun, even magical, to drizzle on bites and the spicy pine nuts are delicious.

Inspiration for this treat was from RAW by Charlie Trotter and Roxanne Klein, but there are a several changes (I've never been one to follow a recipe). I hope you try this and come up with your own variation.

For news of Roxanne Klein's latest vegan venture:

http://www.roxannes.com/roxannes_livingfoods.php

http://www.marinij.com//ci_8049307

Holiday Breakfast Pie

For special breakfasts, it's sometimes good to be able to get a head start the day before.
1.) Line a pan bottom with puff pastry, then build the sides with puff pastry strips. Poke holes in the bottom of pastry with a fork. Cover bottom with good quality tomato paste and sprinkle very finely cut onion on top. When the onion is half cooked and before the puff pastry is browned, remove from oven.

2.)Mix cream cheese ( I use home made goat's kefir cheese) with grated cheese. I use parmisano-reggiano usually, or whatever's around. Add finely chopped parsley, a few chili flakes, season to taste. Spread on top of tomato topping, keeping away from edges a little. Beat an egg white with a little water and brush on the sides of the puff pastry conainer. You can finely chop zuccini, red pepper or other vegetable to add, but make sure yoyr puff pastry sides are high enough for both this mixture and the eggs you are going to add later. Think about where you want to put your eggs and make little nest places in the cheese mixture to hold the eggs in the next step. Back into the oven it goes. Leave until the cheese is a little melted or cooked looking and the puff pastry is slightly brown.

You can stop after either 1 or 2 and continue in the morning.

3.) Last part: carefully crack eggs on top into the little depressions you made. I crack two eggs for each person. You need to work this out before you begin....how many people, eggs...what size dish. Chop chives or gree onion on top. I usually tent with aluminum foil so that the tops of the eggs don't get rubbery and dried out while baking. This part always takes longer than I think it will, but now's the time to set the table and get the coffee and tea ready. Take the aluminum tent off for the last few minutes to crisp up the edges of the puff pastry if it needs it.

It's very festive looking.

Unmolding the Cashew Cheese

Here is the unmolded cheese, still covered in butter muslin, right out of the press.

Unwrapping the muslin.

It looks like the cheese has a nice texture, but I'm excited to flip it over to the top.

Hooray! Vegan cultured cheese.

Now for the next step...... putting all of the elements together.

New Class

I'm really excited about how easy it was to prepare raw food while traveling in Costa Rica with my tiny "raw kitchen"..a few tools that made preparing meals in the tropics a breeze (breezes were perfumed with ylang ylang flowers).
This dish is made with a little coconut noodle tool created by UBRaw. I was interested to find katuk leaves and blossoms for this dish.

This dish featured freshly cut heart of palm in a dulce curry sauce, with vegetables and delicious variegated leaves.

These are spiral cut zucchini with a tomato mango sauce (I brought some dried tomatoes with me and used a few fresh ones as well).

This is a mame sapote and is so rich and delicious it can be eaten as is, made into a pudding or ice cream with nothing more added.

These are tree tomatoes. The skin is hard, but scoop them out and they taste just like tomatoes.

Thes little gourd shapes are called jaiba (pronounced hyba) and their taste and texture is a cross between cucumber and summer squash. Here, they are served in a banana flower petal, stuffed with herbed macadamia cheese and garnished with katuk flowers and medium hot yellow peppers (from a tree). Easy to eat finger food.

Little amuse bouche finger food made from katuk leaves. Fresh pineapple and herbed macadamia cheese with chives.

Another amuse bouche...wrap the lettuce around the pineapple with macadamia cheese and you've got a delicious bite! Garnished with bouganvilla blossoms.

One of the simplest lunches on the go: the gorrilla sandwich! Find some delicious looking lettuce leaves and wrap them around a creamy ripe banana and you're good to go. If you are at home and have time, slit banana, add some almond butter and stick fresh blueberries in the butter then wrap. Imagine all of the variations of this meal in 2 minutes!

I was on top of a mountain, in the jungle, and a long way from stores so each meal was an exercise in creativity. This meal was all from scavenging in the garden. A multi green pesto with zucchini and jaiba noodles and lovely tomatoes.

On a visit to the farm next door, Chef Eric made vegetable sushi for lunch.

Making sugar cane juice with Amy and Mattias.

Chris Kendal opening a jackfruit.

I picked the star fruit that garnishes the plate from a tree and created different kinds of vegetable noodles. I particularly liked the softly curried daikon noodles. There is a sauce on the side for the noodles. This dish was for a pot luck with people from the farm next door.

Chris and Karine Ionesco made a tropical orange/watermelon drink that was refreshing and delicious...also a chunky mango salsa and a gigantic salad!

A tropical feast!

What I learned from this trip was how to be so much simpler with my food. Away from my kitchen conveniences I could still make great tasting foods with just a few tools.

Delicious, Crunchy Baked Broccoli

Preheat the oven to 425.

Take as much broccoli as you want to eat, cut into florets (but relatively big ones.) Best thing to do is prep the broccoli beforehand so it is not only ready, but dry.

Now, it's easy. Put the broccoli on a cookie sheet. Toss with olive oil, salt and pepper (or just have salt and pepper mills at the table). Now add 4 garlic cloves that are peeled and sliced and toss them in too. 3Tbs. pine nuts. Some dried chili flakes.

Roast in the oven 20 to 25 minutes, until "crisp-tender and the tips of some of the florets are browned."

In the middle add lemon juice and stir around. Move the broccoli around a few times during cooking.

When it's done, take it out of the oven sprinkle zest of a lemon over the broccoli, squeeze a little more lemon juice over, add a little more olive oil, and 1/3 cup of freshly grated Parmesan cheese. Put back in oven so cheese will do its thing. Good Parmesan doesn't exactly melt.

I made it in a cast iron frying pan so I could take it directly from the oven to a trivet at the table. Toss at table. A nice, crunchy, roasty change from steamed broccoli.

Friday Night Finger Foods

The puff pastry cups contain home made goat's cheese and a variety of things like anchovies, red pepper, zucchini bits, sun dried tomatoes, etc.
Stir a little water into an egg white and paint the outside edges of the pastry.
When baked (425 degrees F until puffed and golden brown) these are tasty cups to hold chipoltle guacamole (mashed avocados with chipotle salsa) or some of the other tasty bits on the plate, like the sprouts or salmon.

The salmon was cooked with a little coconut oil. Put in oven while you cook the shrimp, or be brave and cook both at once in their own skillets.

For the shrimp, cut tiny pieces of ginger, onion, red pepper, zucchini and saute in butter.
Squeeze in garlic and once the vegetables are almost cooked, add the shrimp.

Serve salmon on beds of sprouts and sprinkle a little tamari on the salmon. The shrimp is served in beds of the sauted vegetables, with some for garnish on top. Pile on the puff cups and add chipotle guacamole and tiny loaves of wheat free multi-grain bread, sliced thin. (see non gluten bread recipe or make your own recipe).

More filling than it looks and a great finger licking way to begin the weekend.

Walnut Pate Party Boats

Walnut Pate Party Boats

3 Cups Soaked Walnuts
1/4 Cup Nama Shoyu (Or less, depending on taste)
1-2 Pinches Sea Salt
Cumin to taste
1 Handful of Cilantro
2 Scallions
2 Carrots
2 Celery Stalks

Put all in a food processor and pulse for 20-30 seconds. Serve on anything!

Can also add kefir cheese

If you want to get creative, you can add the celery stalks, for the white one, then the carrots and some beets for the orange one, and cilantro, scallions, basil......anything green you like, for the green one. If you feel like it you can add pine nuts. Serve in raw pepper boats or zucchini boats, or wrapped inlettuce or in a wrap or with flax crackers.

Our Daily Bread Part 2

If you like the taste of onion seed bagels but want to avoid the wheat, calories and baking that a traditional bagel brings, try these fabulous onion flatbreads.

There are two recipes today that use sunflower seeds, so the first thing to do is get about 3 cups of sunflower seeds soaking. Some chefs only soak seeds for an hour or so, but I like to sprout the seeds, so they soak overnight, I rinse them and let them grow for a day, then make these breads. Don't forget to put flax seeds on to soak.

Have I introduced you to Golubka's blog yet? I found these delicious flatbreads here.

I make these breads in a high speed blender instead of a food processor. It really doesn't matter, except for how you process the flax seeds.
2 medium onions, cut into large pieces for the blender to handle.
1 cup of sprouted sunflower seeds (you will use more later on the top of the flatbreads)
4 tablespoons tamari or nama shoyu
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup flax seeds BUT if you are making them in a high speed blender and have soaked the flax seeds first, you will have what looks like a little flax cake. Once you have blended the other ingredients, cut the flax into strips that will drop through the feed hole in the top of your blender. With the blender on high speed, gradually feed in the strips until they are blended to the consistency you like (some like to have some whole flax seeds in the bread, some don't). If you don't have a high speed blender.....don't do this!!!! Your blender will choke and die quite quickly. If a Vitamix overheats, it simply stops until it cools down (or you put it in the freezer for awhile). If a regular blender becomes overburdened, the motor can quickly burn out.
If you are making these in a food processor, pre-grind the seeds in a coffee grinder or dedicated seed grinder and add them after you have processed the other ingredients. If you are using a regular blender, you have cut the onions smaller, for sure, and you can put the blended mixture into a bowl where you have already placed the flax seeds. Be ready to stir like crazy before it clumps.
(I know I said all this in part 1 but I don't want to feel responsible for your fried blender or sad, lumpy flatbread).

It's all good. This is not brain surgery or rocket science.

Place teflex sheets on your drier shelves and spread the mixture out. Now for the fun part....find every delicious kind of seed you have in your pantry or garden and you are ready to create the topping. I found fennel and parsley seeds in the garden and poppy, hemp, sesame in the pantry. I corse ground some coriander on top and sprinkled the rest, with lots of the sprouted sunflower seeds. Chop parsley leaves and sprinkle. Golubka has a wonderful tip for the next step. Wet your hands and press the seeds and leaves into the mixture. (I used to have problems with the seeds falling off in the dehydrator or when cutting, but no more. Wet hand patting really embeds the seeds into the mixture.)
That's it!

Dehydrate at 105 degrees until they are ready to come off the teflex sheets. Turn them over, remove the sheets, dehydrate some more until they can be cut with a knife, scissors or a pizza wheel. Dehydrate a little more to dry the edges. If you want them really crispy, dehydrate longer. For a bread, leave the pieces bigger. Great for bruschettas. Crispy, they are fabulous with new cashew cheese.

I said there would be another recipe today but I'm out of time. Put those extra soaked seeds in the refrigerator until tomorrow. They will be fine.

Our Daily Bread, Part 1

Often when I tell someone I'm eating a mostly raw diet I can tell they are imagining nothing but an endless parade of salads, and it seems bleak. Nothing could be further from the truth. Raw food also includes a variety of flat breads, crackers and wraps, all dehydrated at 105 degrees, all gluten free and delicious.

Wraps are flexible squares that can be made into many different dishes. They can be made from a variety of vegetables, with the addition of flax or chia seeds for flexibility and nutrition. The green wraps at the top of the photo are adapted from a recipe by Russell James in his E-book Thai Recipes. These green wraps are based on a Russell James recipe from his E-book Thai Raw Recipes.

The wraps on the lower left, covered with hemp seeds, were made with zucchini, tomato and tomatillo.
Green Wraps:

Shred zucchini in a food processor, enough to make about 5 and a half cups.
Put into high speed blender with:
1 tablespoon lime juice
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoons ground coriander
a pinch of salt
Blend.
Now to add some flax seed. You need about a quarter cup........it can be more if you like. My favorite way to use flax seed is to soak it, so that it wakes up its potential and almost begins to sprout. When it does this it looks almost like a cake. I cut it into strips and feed it, a little at a time into the blender. (Too much at once will cause it to overwork and shut off). Some people just grind flax sees, put them in a bowl and add the other blended ingredients to it, stirring furiously so it doesn't clump. The least nutritious option is to buy already ground flax seeds, but they tend to be so delicate once ground that it is easy for them to become rancid, so this is never an option I choose.
Pour
Pour onto teflex sheets which sit on dehydrator shelves, spread out into large squares covering the sheets. These will later be cut into 4. Dehydrate at 105 degrees for as many hours as necessary, so that they are dry but still flexible.

They can be rolled, as in the raw cannelloni above which has a pesto cashew cheese inside and a raw marinara sauce on top. Cucumbers, salad vegetables, raw hummus and raw baba ghanouj are all delicious and quick meals rolled into one of these wraps.

Envelopes:

One can also make envelopes by putting a filling in the center, wetting the edges and folding them toward the center, overlapping a little, then turning them over so that the folded corners are on the bottom. This particular mixture is made with home sprouted mung beans, shitake mushrooms, shallots, red pepper, Thai pepper, cilantro, lime juice, tamari, corriander seed, cumin, sesame oil, sesame seeds, tamarind, and some Indonesian comet tail pepper.

Place in the dehydrator until the envelope becomes somewhat crisp and the filling is warm.

Dipping Sauce:

Dipping sauces can be made from blending fruits in season, like peaches or mango, with cucumber, lime, Thai pepper, cilantro, green onion to garnish. They can also be more like a salsa or a marinera sauce, depending upon the filling you have inside the envelope. Savory or sweet, spicy or mild.

In the next post, hearty walnut cumin flat bread and chewy onion mulit-seed flatbread.

Raw Pasta with Marinara Sauce

Once I began this raw food adventure, I thought I had said Goodbye to glorious pastas and sauces. Luckily, I was wrong.

Raw Pasta
I use this Vietnamese tool to make the "pasta" from zucchini. I bought it from Ronnie and Minh. If you think you'd like to go all out and get the Veggie Spiral Slicer instead of this little tool, you can get it much cheaper at Amazon than on this site. You can also make pasta from zucchinis by cutting lines down the length of the zucchini, then cutting down the length across these cuts to create long thin noodles. Practice your knife skills by making noodles.

I couldn't imagine how a raw marinera sauce could have the rich flavour of slow simmered tomatoes, but there is a secret that makes this sauce thick and rich.
It's the sun dried tomatoes.
Raw Marinera Sauce
Here's a basic recipe. Once you make it you can adjust the sweetness and the seasonings.
*First, soak 10 to 15 sun dried tomato halves.
*2-3 Cups of tomatoes (I love Heritage tomatoes for this, but Romas are fine too) If there are a lot of seeds I take some out.
*1-2 dates. If they are not fresh, soak them. (Start with adding one date. That might be enough for your tastes. It is for ours. Add a second or a third if the dates are small or if your sauce needs it.)
*garlic to your tastes. We add 3 cloves, but we love garlic. Remember, Raw is stronger in flavour than cooked.
*1/4 cup of good olive oil
*seasonings: Celtic sea salt, oregano, Italian parsley, cayenne (I put in a whole cayenne pepper, seeds removed, but one could start with a pinch of powdered cayenne and taste.

Blend this up in a high speed blender until it has a wonderfully smooth texture and taste. You might want to add a little fresh lemon juice if it needs it, or some water if the tomatoes weren't really juicy. Enjoy the tasting part and make the sauce perfect for your taste buds.

Cultured Nut Cheeze
I don't even miss Parmesan cheese when I add some pistachios (or pine nuts) and this time I added a light and breezy cultured Brazil Nut cheeze. I use coconut kefir to culture my cheezes. It was a perfect compliment to the sauce.

Marinated Shitake Mushrooms
These aren't essential, but give an added flavour. Wipe the mushrooms with a cloth, remove woody stems and slice. Add some wheat free Tamari (this isn't raw, omit if you are 100% raw) and lemon juice to marinate.

That's it! A perfect summer lunch. For a larger meal, add a salad and flax crackers or flatbread. I'll post a raw flat bread recipe soon.

Researching Cactus: Nopales drinks, salsa and jerky

Cactus, Super Food of the South

It has taken me several years of living here in California, at the same latitude as Morocco, to begin to make friends with Native plants. Its not that I never saw a cactus in Canada...they do grow....but they are stubby little things, often bent over, low growing and tiny enough to make one wish they had never worn sandals on a hike. I saw cacti every winter when I visited my parents on their winter sojourn to California, and also when I lived in Mexico for a year but somehow they had always been a part of the exotic foliage. Beautiful strangers, not friends.

Last year, when I was still making fermented drinks like kombucha and water kefir, I had read that that some people thought that some of the first "grains" for making water kefir had come from the cactus, found as little crystal like deposits on the cactus. I thought this was interesting, but couldn't find any more information about it. I asked as many Mexican Americans as I could and none had heard of his. Then I found this web page: "World's Best Water Purifier May Be The Cactus"

This is what scientists have discovered that the Mexican Natives probably knew for centuries:

"Scientists from the University of South Florida have discovered the water purifying power of the prickly pear cactus. An extract from the desert-dweller is very effective at removing sediment and bacteria from dirty H2O and, even better, it grows all around the world.

The scientists aren't the first to realize this plant's ability. Nineteenth-century Mexican communities used the cactus as a water purifier. The thick gum in the cactus that stores water is responsible for the purification. The scientists extracted the gum and then added it to water that had been dirtied up with sediment and bacteria.

The gum caused the sediment and bacteria to combine and settle to the bottom, filtering 98 percent of the bacteria from the water. The next phase is to test it on natural water.

The scientists see communities in developing countries using the cactus on daily basis. They could boil a slice of it to release the gum and then add it to water just like the scientists did. But there are hurdles to overcome. What resources would be necessary for widespread growth of the cactus for this purpose and how can people ensure the "treated" water is truly bacteria free? If these problems can be solved, cheap, clean water could be accessible for millions who are currently without. "

I was still excitedly thinking about this when I saw nopales in the supermarket, both the whole paddle and a bag of cut up pieces.

The nopales paddles have single thorns sticking out of raised parts in the paddle.

The best tools I found to remove the thorns were a strawberry huller and a small cheese knife. I'm sure there must be a dedicated tool for this somewhere, but the little strawberry nipper worked well.

The idea that nopales could be used as a water purifier intrigued me so the first thing I wanted to make was a drink. In a high speed blender I combined nopales pieces, ripe mango, fresh young coconut water, coconut kefir, lime juice and ice cubes. Ahhh...it was Heaven! Refreshing, delicious and thirst quenching.

The next experiment was a salsa with tomatillos from the garden, heritage tomatoes, cilantro, avocado, slivers of red onion, lime juice, cumin, cayenne, corriander.......all the usual salsa ingredients with this one added surprise. When I eat nopales I feel the hydrating effect throughout my body. The salsa was delicious and it was also a hydrating medicine.

Dehydrating into a cactus jerky came to mind. I sliced the cleaned nopales paddles and massaged an Asian inspired sauce onto the strips. As I was doing this I was thinking of all of the different kinds of sauces I could marinate these strips in. I mean, how many kinds of beef jerky are out there? ( I don't actually know, having never looked at the stuff, but there must be different kinds). Once the strips were marinated, I sprinkled hemp seeds on them, thinking that I could also use sesame seeds. The strips were lined up on teflex sheets on dehydrator trays and dehydrated for hours at 105. Once dried, they must be stored in lock-tight glass containers with a desccicant inside because the whole nature of the cactus is to capture and hold water. I love these chewy morsels.

So now I feel like I know this cactus a little better. She is becoming my friend. I have planted some on the South side of the garden. The next time I go to the desert, I will go to meet friends.

Nutrients:
Vitamins: A, B1, B2, B3 and C
Fibers: lignen, cellulose, hemicelluloses, mucilages, pectins, gum
Minerals: calcium, magnesium, iron, sodium, potasium
Amino acids:
17 amino acids (including 8 of the essential which must be ingested as food), in the form of easily digestible protein

Benefits:
*Helps balance blood sugar.
*Known to reduce cholesterol.
*Provides nutrients to pancreas and liver, which support digestion and maintain blood sugar balance.
*detoxifies and aids in prevention of various illnesses.
*Gentle alternative to psyllium.

Wouldn't it be great to re-introduce this wonderful plant to the Native populations and to make it available to everyone? It grows easily on land where nothing else will grow. I'm so excited about this plant.

I found a website that makes an extract of nopales.