Creamy Banana Passion Smoothie

In the house where I grew up we had a passionfruit vine growing along the fence for some years. I recently rediscovered my passion for passionfruit thanks to some cheap summer produce & created this delicious & simple smoothie.

2 large bananas, chopped
6 passionfruit, halved
2 cups water
¾ cup almonds (soaked is best)
⅓ cup dates
1 tsp vanilla extract or ½ bean

Blend bananas, water, almonds, dates, & vanilla until smooth. Scoop out passionfruit seeds & flesh, add to blender, & whiz until well combined & seeds are broken up (into pieces around the size of black sesame seeds). Serves 4.

Don’t over-blend this one or it will froth up! If you want to make your smoothie extra-icy, add ½-1 cup of ice & blend for 10 seconds.

&here’s a bonus blurry pic of my most excellent raw pizza lunch & green juice:

&for people who are counting: 11 weeks to go…

Raw Buckwheat & Flax Flatbread

Decent raw bread recipes are hard to come by. Breads heavy in flax have a very strong flavour and can be a touch bitter, other recipes require you to shove stuff through a juicer as well as dehydrating. I have been trying out more raw food cuisine recently, on a health kick, and have come up with this recipe. This bread has a pretty mild flavour compared to straight flax seed/meal breads, and if – like me – you enjoy the taste of buckwheat, you will probably love this bread.

It’s high in omega oils, fibre, B-vitamins, and several minerals, including manganese. Buckwheat is a seed rather than a grain, and contains no gluten – it’s closely related to rhubarb. Freshly ground meal from seeds are the best, otherwise buy your flax and buckwheat meal from a health store with a high turnover so it’s fresh, and keep it in the fridge or freezer. It’s also a good idea to keep your seeds in the fridge so the oils don’t break down or go rancid.

Required Appliances
Dehydrator with temperature setting option of 40ºC (104ºF) or lower.

Ingredients
1½ cup ground buckwheat or buckwheat flour/meal
1 cup ground flax seeds or flax meal
1 teaspoon sea salt
2 cups filtered water
⅓ cup sunflower seeds
⅓ cup whole flax seeds
⅓ cup pumpkin seeds
¼ sesame seeds (white, black, or a mix)
1 tbsp poppy seeds
1 tbsp nutritional yeast (optional)

Method
Mix buckwheat and flax meal in a bowl. Add salt, nutritional yeast (optional), and water, mix until well combined. Stir through sunflower, flax, pumpkin, sesame, and poppy seeds. Spread the batter evenly over 2 dehydrator trays. Dehydrate at 40ºC (104ºF) for 4 hours, flip the bread over, then dehydrate for another 1-4 hours, depending on how dry you want your bread. Cut each tray of bread into 8-9 slices (8 if round tray, 9 if rectangular). Store in refrigerator. Makes 16-18 slices.

Serving Suggestions, etc
+ A great “bread” for morning “untoast.”
+ An awesome raw pizza base.
+ A bun for burgers or sandwiches.
+ You can use different seeds in the bread to suit your own tastes.
+ Add finely chopped onion, crushed garlic, pepper, herbs, and/or spices for fancy flavour variations!
+ You might need to add a little more or less water to the thick bread batter depending on the water content of your flax and buckwheat meal.
+ Instead of water – and for extra tastiness and vitamins – you could use fresh celery juice or a mix of celery and carrot juice.
+ The longer you dehydrate the bread, the dryer it will be, and the longer it will keep – up to two months in the refrigerator. (Well-dried bread is great to take camping or on road trips!)
+ Less dehydration time makes a soft pliable bread with a great texture. It will keep for about a week in the fridge.
+ I use nutritional yeast that contains vitamin B-12. (Note: nutritional yeast is sometimes called savoury yeast. It’s not the same as brewer’s yeast or other yeasts!) While nutritional yeast is not strictly raw, it’s handy if you like to add extra vitamins to your food.
+ Read more about raw food preparation on the FAQ page.

Updated recipes for gluten-free/yeast-free pizza & bread

I have adjusted a couple of my recipes. Here’s some updates.

Pizza
I’ve made my pizza dough a little healthier.

Pizza dough ingredients:
half cup potato starch
half cup besan/chickpea flour (OR half cup maize flour; OR half a cup of blended chickpea and maize!)
half cup brown rice flour
half cup tapioca
teaspoon of salt
teaspoon of xantham or guar gum (optional, but advisable)
tablespoon baking powder
tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
up to 1 cup of water, or as needed
small handful of mixed seeds, ground flax/LSA, nutritional yeast, etc

Original post and instructions and photos

Method:
1. Sift together flours, salt, gum, and baking powder. Stir or whisk until well combined.
2. Add half a cup of water and all the oil to flour mix. Stir unti combined, then knead, and form into a dough ball, adding more water as necessary. (Note: this won’t be stretchy like wheat dough. It will be more like pastry dough.) Only add as much water as you need. Too much and the crust will be crumbly.
3. Knead through mixed seeds, etc.
4. Very lightly flour pizza stone/tray (rice flour is good for this). Put the ball of dough on your pizza stone/tray. Flatten it gradually, pressing it into round, pizza-base shape, making sure the edges aren’t crumbly, fixing them as you go. Make sure the dough is evenly distributed as you go. Use a rolling pin to make the process faster. (If it’s not, you can patch holes up by taking dough from other areas – I didn’t have to do this, though, as the dough was quite workable).
5. Roll the edges of the pizza base over, so that the edge centimetre is twice the thickness as the rest of the base, pressing firmly.
6. Bake base for 10 minutes in preheated oven at 220degC. Remove from oven and cool a little. While the base is baking and cooling, sort out your sauces and topping.
7. Add sauces and toppings to pizza. Using a pastry brush, brush edges of pizza base with olive oil (or spray it, if you are so inclined to use wacky modern technologies). Bake pizza in 220degC oven for 20-30 minutes, or until pastry and toppings are cooked/browning.

Original post and instructions and photos

Gluten-free yeast-free bread
Tweaked some of the quantities and method a bit.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups potato starch
1 cup brown rice flour
1 cup besan (chickpea flour) OR maize flour (OR 1 cup of blended besan and maize!)
1/2 cup tapioca starch (arrowroot)
3 tablespoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons xantham or guar gum*

2 cups water (+ extra as needed)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoons blackstrap molasses
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

Optional seeds/extras:
pepitas/pumpkin seeds
poppy seeds
sunflower seeds
sesame seeds
LSA meal
nutritional yeast flakes
caraway seeds (for rye-style)

Method
1. Preheat oven to 210degC (400degF).
2. Sift together the flours, starch, salt, gum, baking soda, and baking powder. Stir with a whisk until well combined. (Most important step – make sure everything is sifted and well combined!).
3. Create a well. Add one cup of the water + remaining wet ingredients.
4. Stir wet ingredients into dry until ingredients are evenly distributed, and thick dough/batter forms. Add remaining water as required, until evenly mixed. You may knead the dough a little if you wish, but the mixture rises better a bit wetter than required for kneading. Do not overmix. Fold/knead in a few tablespoons of seeds/extras. (Avoid flax meal, as it seems to impede rising. Flax seeds are probably ok.)
6. Pour/press mix gently into lightly oiled bread pan. Sprinkle top of loaf with seeds (optional), and lightly spray/brush with oil.
7. Cover bread pan with foil, and bake in a preheated oven for about 60 minutes. Remove foil, and bake another 10 minutes, or until top is brown. Test loaf with a skewer or knife to make sure it’s done.
8. Cool in pan briefly, before turning out onto a wire rack to cool. For best results, store in the refrigerator and slice off pieces as you need it.
* Using gum improves the texture and mix of this bread a lot, but it is optional – if you don’t use it you may need to reduce the amount of water a bit.
Note: Depending where you get your flour, it may have a different water content. I find rice flour tends to vary the most. You may need less or more water, so add as needed!

Addendum: Breads containing vinegar may not be suitable for yeast allergy sufferers.

Pizza!

I have made worse pizza bases from wheat flour – this is good! and, as a bonus, easier/quicker to make than the old wheat yeast-risen bases I used to make. This makes a medium-thick crust. You could always make it thinner, but thicker is probably a tad safer to avoid crumbling!

Pizza dough ingredients:
1 cup potato starch flour
half cup besan/chickpea flour
half cup white rice flour
teaspoon of salt
teaspoon of xantham gum (or guar) (optional)
1 tablespoon baking powder
a big sploosh (few tablespoons?) extra virgin olive oil
up to 1 cup of water

Method:
1. Sift together flours, salt, gum, and baking powder. Stir or whisk until well combined.
2. Add half a cup of water and all the oil to flour mix. Stir unti combined, then knead, and form into a dough ball, adding more water as necessary. (Note: this won’t be stretchy like wheat dough. It will be more like pastry dough.) Only add as much water as you need. Too much and the crust will be crumbly.
3. Very lightly flour pizza stone/tray (rice flour is good for this). Put the ball of dough on your pizza stone/tray.

Flatten it gradually, pressing it into round, pizza-base shape, making sure the edges aren’t crumbly, fixing them as you go. Make sure the dough is evenly distributed as you go. Use a rolling pin to make the process faster. (If it’s not, you can patch holes up by taking dough from other areas – I didn’t have to do this, though, as the dough was quite workable).

4. Roll the edges of the pizza base over, so that the edge centimetre is twice the thickness as the rest of the base, pressing firmly.

5. Bake base for 10 minutes in preheated oven at 220degC. Remove from oven and cool a little. While the base is baking and cooling, sort out your sauces and topping.
6. Add sauces and toppings to pizza.

Using a pastry brush, brush edges of pizza base with olive oil (or spray it, if you are so inclined to use wacky modern technologies). Bake pizza in 220degC oven for 20-30 minutes, or until pastry and toppings are cooked/browning.

7. Don’t let the cat eat any pizza before you’ve had your fair share.

Comments:
- D said that the base tasted a little bit “potatoey”. I think he’s imagining it… but if you don’t like the “potatoey” flavour, swap some of the potato starch flour with tapioca – a quarter to a third of a cup should be plenty.
- The gum makes the crust a bit less crumbly. But so long as you get the water content right, you don’t really need gum (as with most baked goods!).
- You could add seeds to the base, like poppy seeds or sesame. Maybe some LSA.

Sauce and Toppings:
- My sauce is a mixture of: tomato paste, clove of garlic, powdered hot chilli, dried Italian spices – easy, fabulous stuff. A good Chinese-brand sweet chilli sauce makes an excellent pizza sauce, too, particularly with roasted pumpkin among the toppings.
- My toppings on this pizza included: red onion, spinach, kalamata olives, mushrooms, tomato, pineapple, grated Kingland soy cheese, alfalfa sprouts.
- My other favourite toppings are: pineapple, sun-dried tomatoes, kale, artichoke hearts, shallots, homemade cashew cheese, Cheezly brand soy cheese, fresh basil, oregano, silverbeet, roasted pumpkin, baby corn, birdseye chilli, zucchini, capsicum… etc…! Sometimes, after the pizza has come out of the oven, I have been known to top it with uncooked baby spinach, rocket, or sprouts (sunflower sprouts are great for this).

In conclusion:
I adore pizza! I am glad to have it back in my life in gluten-free form… Never leave me again, o glorious tasty Italian meal. xo

P.S. I’m going away for a couple of weeks, so there won’t be updates for a little while.

Gluten-free vegan food pr0n

Fear not, I’m still alive. I’ve just been going through some wisdom teeth hell… but I’ve still been eating and photographing! Here’s a few of the latest pics:

My first ever gluten-free pizza: a success!

Getting our slice on.

Scrambled tofu with spinach and mushroom on toast. Tastiest breakfast in the universe.

Chocolate sugar cookies, made with rice and chickpea flour. An odd texture, but tasty!

A yeast-risen gluten-free loaf that sunk in the middle a bit, but tasted great.

A small yeast-free loaf in a big pan! It split a bit on top.

Mmm, tastyriffic.