Vegan Apple & Almond Maple Granola (refined sugar & gluten-free too)

       
       

Salut my lovelies,

Today is the first in my fall fabulous recipe box, and not only is it gluten-free, it is also, drumroll please...
Vegan, dairy-free, soy-free, and refined sugar-free!!!
         

But that's impossible you say, I, my friends, have been toiling away in the kitchen to make some boom fall recipes that are healthy and taste nothing like cardboard awfulness, which some try to pass off as good and worth exhorbitant prices.
Why, sure, I always wanted to feel homicidal after throwing away my hard earned money, on life sustaining necessities I couldn't afford in the first place! ROAR!
But I digress.   

Anywhoodles, this recipe has become a family favourite, and I now get requests for double and triple batches of it for gifts, for birthdays and for the holidays. My son loves to add this to his smoothies, he gobbles it up faster than I can bake it and get more to him. I prefer to eat it with my vegan coconut yogurt, extra cinnamon sprinkled on top, and some seasonal fruit. People at work just grabbed handfuls and munched away on it like that. You could also dip some fruit in chocolate and then dip it in granola for a nice treat.
Another discovery, was that it was loverly with some heated, unsweetened, almond milk, on those super chilly mornings. It's a nice option over hot oatmeal or cornmeal porridge. What's  cornmeal porridge you ask? Why, you need this yumminess in your life, click the link to get to that recipe, and smile at the life changing breakfast discovery coming your way!
http://bienconfitglutenfree.blogspot.com/2016/10/west-indian-cornmeal-porridge.html?m=1
P.s. you can now make it vegan by substituting coconut condensed milk to replace the regular condensed milk. I have had to forgo this creamy, soothing, comfort food, delight, as I am on a no corn, strict, no dairy, mold free diet. However, you should try it, you're really missing out if you have never had it. It is one of the best Jamaican breakfast foods ever and is appreciated by old and young alike.
Okay, back to granola.     

Yeah, that does look good, doesn't it? I decided to make this after dehydrating a rather large amount of apples I had gotten from two different orchards we had gone to. The first being my beloved eco-farm, Au Paradis des Fruits Dunham, and then there's Petch orchards in Hemmingford. Seriously, if you have never gotten apples fresh from an orchard or verger as we call them here in Quebec (a la Francais), you are seriously missing out! The apples are amazing, you're directly supporting local farms, you can choose from a variety of apples-some of which you may have never heard of, along with having a blasty blast trying apple and pear based noms!       

Most vergers here have apples and pears, some even have other products like, pumpkins, berries, and scrumdidilyumptious honey!     

I adore the basswood honey we get from Dunham and no, I don't want to share it! Yes, it's just that good.       

Sorry, not really sorry. There's loads I will share but zee honey, she is too special. I buy you your own, and that's called compromise; even when being a a**. Hehheh.
Hmmmmm.
Where were we before the honey greed tangent? Oh yeah, granola and apples. So, I dehydrated loads of these tasty apples for snacking and baking during the colder months. I like stacking my  pantry.       

Ironically, I was not very well over the last year and the stacks of food stuffs I had dehydrated and canned were quite a bonus in my then, dangeously sickly life.
I was prepaaaaaaaaaared! If you don't know the movie reference, too bad and sad for you; you shall not pass into the realm of hoodwinked geekery.

Moving forward, I decided that apples and maple needed to hang out in a crunchy goodness kinda way, so I threw stuff together and it actually came out boomtastical!!! Toot, toot! Yes, I tooted my own horn. Nobody else wants to go near that thing!

I made sure to use gluten-free oats, and vegan ingredients that steered clear of soya and refined sugar, as my tummy was not tolerating any of that. The fact that all these ingredients did not trigger any response was a major win in my book.
  

I would suggest you use your own dehydrated apples that are not sugar laden or mixed with sulfites. I found out the hard way that sulfites are not our friends, and I should stay clear of that trouble maker at all costs! Yup, that means no wine of any kind for me either. Don't cry for me Argentina, I don't really like anything other than sangria, which let's be honest, is grown up fruit punch that I am convinced the kool-aid man must have been drinking. What other excuse could one have for smashing into strange people's houses and yelling, "Oh, yeah!"
Get the bleep outta here & fix this wall you insensitive, clumsy oaf!
   

Anywhoodles, enough sillies. You came for a recipe and I'm a give it to yah!
As always, there are pics to guide and inspire you.
     

       APPLE & ALMOND MAPLE GRANOLA
Ingredients:
1/2 Cup Almonds chopped
1/2 Cup Ground almond flour
2 Cups Oats, toasted
1 Cup Warmed almond milk unsweetened
1/4 Cup Ground flax seed
3 Tbsp Hemp seeds
2 Tbsp Hemp seed powder aka hemp protein powder
3 Tbsp Ground tiger nuts
1/8 Cup Organic coconut flour
1 tsp Ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp Freshly scraped nutmeg
1/2 tsp Pink sea salt
1/2 Cup Unsweetened apple sauce
2 Cups Macintosh apple organic, shredded with or without skin, it's  up to you. I also use granny smith apples to success in this recipe.
3 Tbsp Exttra virgin olive oil organic or Melted organic coconut oil
1/4 tsp Walnut oil
1/3 Cup Grade B maple syrup
1 tsp Vanilla extract (real vanilla) or Vanilla bean paste

Toppings:
2 Cups Dried diced apples or dried blueberries of you prefer.
1/3 Cup Maple flakes

Method:

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit

-In a cast iron skillet, on medium low heat, dry toast oats, stirring constantly, until just starting to smell nutty. REMOVE FROM HEAT IMMEDIATELY!
Oats burn very easily, when off the heat pour them into a bowl right away to stop cooking and prevent burning. If your oats burn, you must throw them away and begin again or the entire recipe will taste burnt and bitter. Don't waste expensive ingredients for one mistake. Begin again, sorry but not sorry. Pour the warm almond milk over warm oats, stir well, allow to soak in for 10 minutes, while you prep your other ingredients.

-In a large bowl mix all dry ingredients, including oats, stir well.

-In a seperate bowl, mix all wet ingredients, stir well.

-Add wet to dry, mix until well incorporated.

-On a parchment lined tray, pour out the granola and spread out in a lumpy, even, way. Don't push it down, you want lumps, bumps, and chunks.

-Bake for 15 minutes, shake up the tray, turn it half way round and back into the oven it goes. Bake for another 15 minutes, shake up the tray, using a spatula break into some pieces, I like big chunky bites so I don't break it up too much.

-Remember to turn tray half way, back in the oven it goes for 10-20 minutes.

-This process usually takes 40-50 minutes but depending on how wet the apples were, it can take an additional 10 to 30 minutes or more. You want a golden hue to your granola. Stir it up one more time and put back in the oven, making sure to turn the tray half way when placing it back in.

-Turn off the oven and leave the granola inside, I will put a wooden spoon in the oven door to leave it slightly ajar, so it doesn't burn but this is only if my granola is already quite golden brown. If your granola is already dark, don't leave it in too long. This last step is only to ensure it has dried out to the core of the granola nuggets.

-Remove from oven, allow to cool completely. Transfer to a bowl, add toppings and mix together well. Feel free to use other toppings like coconut chips, chocolate chips, or other dried fruit of choice like cranberries.

-Keep in an airtight container for up to 4 weeks. Ours never lasts this long in the house but good luck! I like to reuse glass jars or Mason jars to store it in.
     

     

While my oats were soaking, I chopped my almonds and walnuts.

Stir carefully to keep some chunks to your batch.

If you need help with this, have questions, or would like clarification, leave your comments and questions down below. I love to hear from you.

Take care, be well, love freely...
Chef Kiki

Raw Vegan Buckwheat Krispies Recipe

                                 

Well, Hello There!

I was wanting something simple and nutritious for breakfast but wasn't in the mood to make anything. It turns out after smashing my hand like a total klutz, there was yummy raw, vegan, cereal to be found hidden on the shelf I had been rifling through, that I had made in the dehydrator a while back. Yipeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! 



There's so much happy & healthy in a bowl and it was already made. Good Saturday morning even though I still can't find my wedding planning binder but shhhh, don't tell hubby to be. Actually, he's the first person I whined to about it and it's all because I reorganized last week & now I can't find things. The wedding binder being the most distressing but it's here somewhere. Soon-to-be Hubby to be is being very supportive & trying to help jog my memory but no luck yet, St. Christopher, please help me find it! 
Anyways back to food. 
I am working on that recipe with some vegan mock ricotta & the Sable grapes but it's not ready to post, ( I ate all the Grapes, sorry, & the grocers order will only be there later today-waaah) so I am going to put up this one. It's an oldie that has my changes, from the Raw Food Real World cookbook by Matthew Kennedy & Sarma Melngailis. I use this recipe quite a bit, especially when I want to introduce people to the wonders of raw food, I need to modify it though because I found the original was way too sweet/salty for my liking. One of my favourite things to do is triple the recipe and add strawberries to one batch-which I always eat first, blueberries to a second, & leave the last tray plain. I have increased the amounts to reflect a 3-4 tray batch because I figure, if you're going to bother making cereal, make enough to last for a while longer that 3 days. Which, is as long as this stuff lasts when everyone discovers it & lovingly eats your stash. Meh-better they eat healthy & you be wise enough to make several trays. (Hide your personal stash) 
This recipe requires a blender & Excalibur food dehydrator, set on the living foods temperature setting. (105 degrees)

RAW VEGAN BUCKWHEAT KRISPIES:

INGREDIENTS:
-5 CUPS raw buckwheat soaked for 2 hours, then rinsed & drained. Be sure it's raw buckwheat, not toasted. 
-1 1/2 Cup grade B maple syrup 
-2 Tbsp vanilla extract
-1/2 tsp sea salt
-1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
-1/2-1 Cup water or juice depending if you are adding fruit. I will leave 3 bowls separated with ingredients, omitting the water until I know what kind of flavour cereal I am making. Strawberry cereal gets strawberry juice, blueberry cereal gets blueberry juice, plain cereal gets water & a touch more maple if it's not sweet enough. Add a bit at a time so it's not too watery. 

METHOD:
-In a bowl combine all ingredients together, separate into three smaller bowls if you are making different flavours. 
-In blender, blend half the recipe at a time so it does not overflow, if you need to do 3 or 4 batches at a time then do so. - When it's smooth and looks like a thick paste, then you can spread it out on teflex or parchment lined sheets on your dehydrator trays. You must place the mix on a sheet, not directly on the tray, or else the cereal will goop through & you're going to be swearing at the mess to clean! 


                                       This is plain with the cinnamon. 


With blueberry, the strawberry pic did not turn out but it looks the same except pink because of the strawbs. 


This last tray has my Honey'd Graham's cereal on it, I believe in simplifying life whenever one can. So, I got into the habit of making several different kinds of cereals when it's dehydrator time, this recipe is already in a much earlier post, should you be interested. 

-Now dehydrate each tray for 10 hours and check them, if the cereal is dry enough, flip them over to allow the back to dry out as well as the top. If it's not ready, dehydrate an additional 1-3 hours until you can flip them and peel away the telex sheet or parchment paper. If some of the parchment paper sticks, don't worry, it's easily removed once the cereal is all dry. 
-Continue dehydrating for another 14 hours. This recipe requires a good 24 hours. 
-Once dry, you may begin breaking one tray of cereal at a time into bite size pieces & then place in storage bags or airtight containers. 

This is what it looks like when done:


Stored up:



It lasts 3-4 months if stored in a dry place in the proper container. I have never seen it last beyond a few weeks because it gets eaten so quickly, except for the bag above which was somehow forgotten during the holiday craziness. 
Enjoy it with milk of your choice, I always use almond milk, and fresh fruit. So good with fresh mangoes or berries. I have also been known to crumble it on my coconut yogurt! 



Remember to share with your loved ones and leave a comment below, I love hearing from you.

Maple Blueberry Muffin Raw Cereal

Awwww yeah!

In keeping with sugar shack/cabane a sucre month, and the Bien Confit! gf maple giveaway, I believe a maple goodness recipe is in order.

I am gearing up for spring and that means stocking up on all things raw, vegan, whole food, and uber healthy. I like to do a major cleanse between April and May which involves, raw vegan, juice fasting, colonic irrigation, and yoga with plenty of fresh air and tea. It's pretty intense but I notice a huge difference from before & after. So, I start making my raw vegan cereals, crackers, protein snacks, and anything else that needs dehydration in March. Being prepared makes the whole experience much less stressful and enjoyable. I had loads of blueberries, almonds, and maple syrup, and I wanted a Muffin. This cereal was born out of cravings & it was amazing! We really enjoyed the flavour and I am amazed by that blueberry muffin taste, minus the fake and unhealthy ingredients. So many people eat store bought or fast food muffins in the morning, not realizing they're eating glorified cake with tons of sugar and bad fats. 
It's not fuel, it's fumes that leave your tank running on empty. This recipe is gluten free as always, satisfies the craving, is chock full of good fats with fiber and protein, and because it's raw vegan, there are enzymes waiting to help you digest. I also made sure to keep it soy free, corn free, refined sugar free, & dairy free(no duh, it is vegan). 
You will need an Excalibur dehydrator set on 105 degrees, raw food setting, for this recipe and it takes a full 24 hours to dehydrate but it's well worth the effort. 
Hope you enjoy it as much as we have and I may add a small bag to the draw, if people are interested, leave a comment down below.

MAPLE BLUEBERRY MUFFIN RAW CEREAL: 
(vegan, gluten free, soy free, dairy free, refined sugar free) 

Ingredients :
2 Cups Almonds, raw and soaked overnight then rinsed well. 
2 Cups Almond milk 
1/4 Cup Maple syrup 
1/4 tsp pink sea salt
2 Tbsp Golden flax ground
3 Tbsp Tiger nuts ground
1 Cup frozen blueberries or fresh

Method:
-Soak raw almonds overnight and then drain and rinse thoroughly before using. 

-In a good blender, blend almonds & milk until smooth. Put in large bowl. 
-Add maple syrup, flax, tiger nuts, and salt. Mix well. 
-Add blueberries last, mix in quickly but do not over stir. 
-Spread out on parchment or liners for Excalibur telex sheets, this recipe makes 2 trays. 
-Dehydrate the spread for 10 hours, check the cereal, should be dry enough to peel the paper off and flip. If not, wait another hour or two then try again. 
-Once flipped, (Do not be concerned if some parchment paper sticks, it is easily removed when the cereal is completely dry.) place back in dehydrator for 14 hours more. 
-Gently break up the cereal into bite sized pieces, it should break and be crisp, if not the cereal needs to dry a bit longer. - Store in an airtight container, will keep for several months. 
-Serve with almond milk or crumbled over yogurt. 







Remember to share with someone you love & let me know how this recipe turned out. I love to hear from you.
Take care, be well, love freely...