Roasted pecan butter with apples is one of my favorite paleo and vegan friendly snacks, since it satisfies my sugar cravings without adding natural sweeteners. Although, maple syrup or honey would taste great with pecans.

The pecans blended very easily in the food processor. Pecans are soft with a lot of natural oil so you don’t need to add any additional oils to blend it up either. Just be patient with the food processor and mix often, maybe every minute or two, to get the pecans completely blended. I’ve made this with cashews before, and it took a lot more time, so pecans are a great beginner nut butter to try to make yourself.

I suggest roasting the raw unsalted pecans for 5 minutes ahead of time. This allows you to control the amount of salt, plus when I bought pecan butter already made at the farmer’s market, the vendor said the raw pecan butter went bad quickly in the fridge. So, either make sure you eat it within a couple days to a week, or roast it first, and it should last a bit longer. Honestly, between my husband and I, the pecan butter will be gone in a day, two at most.

Roasted Pecan Butter with Apples

 

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Prep time

5 mins

Cook time

10 mins

Total time

15 mins

 

Ingredients

• 4 cups of unsalted raw pecans
• ¼ tsp of sea salt
• 4 granny smith apples

Instructions

1. Roast pecans on cookie sheet for five minutes at 350 degrees fairenheight.
2. Then add, roasted pecans to food processor and blend. Mix often about every minute or so, to help pecans blend. This should take 10-15 minutes. Pecans are soft and have a lot of oil, so it shouldn't take that long.
3. When it looks creamy, mix in sea salt.
4. Slice apple and serve.

Notes

(optional) Add maple syrup, honey and/or cinnamon to the pecan butter.

Nutrition Information

Serving size: 4-6

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This recipe is featured on the Fast and Easy Paleo Link Party by Paleo Magazine.

I was looking for a way to use my juice pulp, from the beet, carrot, and cucumber juice I made, so I thought a raw flax crackers would be fun to try to make.  I’ve only used flax meal before, so using the whole flax seed, was a different but good. They came out more crispy then just the ground flax meal. I tried to ground the flax in the food processor, but that didn’t work well. For the juice, I used 4-5 beets, a half a bag of carrots and two cucumbers. I’d say that yields me about 4 cups of pulp. In the future I might add more seasoning to the crackers, but for now I’ll plan to eat it with some delicious dip.

Carrot and Beet Flax Crackers

 

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Prep time

3 hours

Cook time

12 hours

Total time

15 hours

 

Serves: 2 sheets

Ingredients

• 4 cups of juice pulp (carrot, beet, & cucumber)
• 1.5 cups of golden flax seeds
• 1 tbsp sea salt

Instructions

1. Mix pulp and flax seeds in a bowl
2. Line dehydrator with parchment paper, on two levels for each clean up.
3. Spread mixture over parchment paper.
4. Sprinkle with sea salt.
5. Let turn dehydrator on to 105 degrees fahrenheit, and let it run until it's completely dry, preferably overnight.
6. Then cut apart crackers with a kitchen scissors.

Notes

Feel free to experiment with spices and/or fresh herbs.

Nutrition Information

Serving size: 4-6

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Finding healthy snack food, and dessert alternatives can be difficult. I think the hardest part of trying to eat healthy is reducing sugar. I’ve been on lots of different types of elimination diets, and nothing has been more difficult to eliminate than sugar. Even cooked food, was easier to get rid of then sugar! Speaking of raw food, this recipe for raw flax flatbread was something I ate regularly. When I was raw, then later vegan, I made this flatbread from cold-milled organic flax from the supplement aisle to get omega 3 fatty acids. Each flatbread is three tablespoons of flax so you can easily make a daily portion.

I used to eat these with raw hummus from the Santa Monica Co-op, which they made in house. Their hummus has completely ruined me for any other kind, everything else just tastes stale. I highly recommend it. You can also eat this with creamed honey which is what I plan on doing for dessert. I have a delicious local creamed wildflower honey by Pacifica that I adore. Before my dieting days, I used to eat toast with creamed honey for breakfast. FYI, creamed honey doesn’t involve dairy or cream, but it is thicker and more opaque then regular honey and can be used as a healthy spread alternative. These also go great with pesto or to use for sandwiches. Liver pate is another nutrient dense food, and would be excellent to spread on this flatbread.

Since the dehydrator was running, I thought I would make myself another healthy snack food. These sliced cinnamon apples are made from fuji apples and sprinkled with saigon cinnamon. I used a mandolin to cut very thin slices and they came out delicious. They are very light and durable, so they make a great snack for hiking, taking to the beach, or thrown in a purse.

Raw Flax Flatbread

 

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Prep time

15 mins

Cook time

8 hours

Total time

8 hours 15 mins

 

Author: Lauren Bolanos

Serves: 1

Ingredients

• 3 tbsp of cold milled ground flax
• 2 tbsp of water
• a pinch of sea salt and pepper
• sesame seeds to sprinkle on top

Instructions

1. Mix sea salt, flax, and pepper.
2. Add water to form a paste, increase water as needed.
3. Spread mixture on washable sheet for dehydrator, or parchment paper.
4. Sprinkle sesame seeds and sea salt on top. Lightly pat them down.
5. Dehydrator for a couple hours, then flip.
6. Dehydrate till desired dryness, about a couple hours minimum.

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Sliced Cinnamon Apples

 

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Prep time

1 hour

Cook time

6 hours

Total time

7 hours

 

Author: Lauren Bolanos

Ingredients

• 1 apple (fuji)
• 1 tsp of cinnamon (saigon)

Instructions

1. I didn't have an apple core or I sliced out a ring around the core, a couple inches deep.
2. Then I sliced the apple on a mandolin, and punched out the circle I made around the apple core.
3. Place apple slices directly on mesh, then sprinkle with cinnamon. You might want to line underneath with paper towels so the cinnamon doesn't sprinkle on your counter.
4. Dehydrate for 4-6 hours or until desired dryness.

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These raisins are made from grapes are called Autumn Royal Seedless, and I picked them up at my farmer’s market. You can buy their sun dried raisins there as well, but I wanted to try to dehydrate them myself. They taste amazing, not like raisins, but like grape candy. This would be a very healthy alternative to candy for Halloween. I found a lot of recipes online that said to boil the grapes first, but I wanted to try to make them raw the first time. I will attempt to boil them in the future, apparently it makes the grape skin crack which reduces the amount of time spent in the dehydrator. I left them in the dehydrator for six days, before I felt that they were dry enough.

How to Make Raisins in the Dehydrator

 

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Prep time

2 hours

Cook time

120 hours

Total time

122 hours

 

Author: Lauren Bolanos

Ingredients

• 2 batches of Autumn Royal Seedless Grapes

Instructions

1. Use a pin to punch a hole through grapes to let liquid leave grape and dehydrate faster.
2. Arrange on dehydrator sheets and set to 115 degrees.
3. Let dehydrate for 5 to 6 days, flip grapes on last day (to dry out the underside)
4. Then remove from dehydrator when you have the desired firmness.

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These were the bars I took hiking at Malibu State Creek Park. When I first started eating healthy I was a raw vegan for about two months, so even though I eat more paleo meals now, I try to include lots of raw whole foods, and raw snacks into my diet. The only sweetener I used for these are bananas and dates, so they are technically a whole food snack. Normally, I leave the seeds whole, but I decided to add them to the Vitamix to see how difficult it would be to grind up. It wasn’t that bad, but there was more clean up involved. In the future, I will attempt to grind the seeds in a spice grinder first. It might eliminate the need for the Vitamix. You get more nutrition from ground seeds, otherwise, they will potentially pass through your body whole, while you don’t get the nutrition you paid for.

Raw Vegan Banana and Date Granola Bars (nut free)

 

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Prep time

20 mins

Cook time

10 hours

Total time

10 hours 20 mins

 

Author: Lauren Bolanos

Ingredients

• ½ cup of sunflower seeds
• 2 tbsp ground flax seeds
• 1 tbsp of chia seeds
• ½ tbsp of sesame seeds
• ½ tbsp of hemp seeds
• 1 banana
• 8 pitted medjool dates
• ½ cup of water

Instructions

1. Add seeds to bowl, and mix in water, then add to vitamix and blend.
2. Add more water if needed, and add in remaining ingredients as you continue to blend.
3. If having trouble blending, remove vitamix top and use punger while off, then attach vitamix top and retry plunging at low speed.
4. Cut parchment sheet to fit dehydrator for easy clean up.
5. Smooth mixture over parchment paper ½ inch thick.
6. Sprinkle with sesame seeds (optional) for appearance.
7. Dehydrate for 3-4 hours on 104 degrees, then score mixture with a knife to outline where bars should break.
8. Dehydrate for 4-6 hours (or longer), gently separate bars and remove from parchment paper for quicker drying and dehydrate more if needed.

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