Carrot Pulp & Coconut Flax Crackers

I'm always looking for tasty ways to use carrot pulp leftovers from juicing. I know, I know: juice pulp is great for the compost.... but what about me?! It's tough to just toss away all that bright orange beauty, so often, I save it in the fridge. (I confess, I'm a saver. Some might even venture to say hoarder [how many "bag bags" does one family really need?] but let's not go there.)

Okay, so the fridge is full of carrot pulp. Now what? Well, I have my ways. I feed it to the dog - either mix raw carrot pulp into her food or cook it into the fish scrap and chicken leg stews she loves so well. I feed it to the kids - tucks nicely unnoticed into tuna salad, for instance. I've also tried blending the pulp into raw Cream of Carrot soup and Orange Sunshine salad dressing. (Haven't had great success there yet but am still game for trying. Recipes, anyone?)

By far, my favorite use for the stuff is as a filler for raw flax crackers. Used this way, carrot pulp adds color, texture, flavor and vitamin A nutrition. Plus there's no extra work of grating or chopping, seeing that carrot pulp is pre-pulped, and all. Flax crackers and chia chips were made for carrot pulp. Hence it features prominently in my Spicy Sunflower Chia Chip recipe on this blog, for instance.

Recently, Raw Chef Dan sent out an email with a recipe for "Coconut Toast" which sounded so good, I made a batch straight away. When cracker met tongue, we promptly fell in love at first bite. The richness of the coconut oil paired with the crispy crunch sensation of the tiny flaxseeds creates savory heaven in your mouth, like a macaroon, but not, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, one good recipe deserves another. The following is a mod of RCDs Coconut Toast original using... naturally.... leftover carrot pulp from juicing, as well as sunflower seeds (inexpensive) instead of almonds (expensive). It's really good, really easy and really cheap. With all the fuss about how pricey the raw food diet can be, what could be better? Here's how they look, all scored and ready for drying. Pretty!


CARROT PULP & COCONUT FLAX CRACKERS

1 cup sunflower seeds
1 cup golden flax seeds
3 cups water
2 cups carrot pulp, leftover from juicing
2 cups dried coconut flakes
1-2 tsp Himalayan pink salt (I used 1 but will up it next time)
1-2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Food process or grind the sunflower seeds and flax seeds together to make a gritty meal. Soak this in water for one half to one hour. Stir in remaining ingredients. Place equal amounts of dough onto 3 teflex sheets, and use wet hands or a spatula tool to spread dough to edges. (For a thicker, "crispbread" style cracker, divide the dough onto just 2 teflex sheets.) Use a rubber spatula to score into 16 squares per sheet. Dehydrate at 110 degrees for 4 hours; 6 hours for thicker version. Flip crackers onto mesh, peel off teflex and continue to dehydrate 4-6 more hours or until you attain desired dryness. Store in airtight container in fridge.

Note: I plan try this another time using leftover ALMOND pulp (from making almond milk) instead of the sunflower seeds. That cracker will be a waste-not-want-not dream come true!

BONUS: Remember all that prior posting about Properly Combined Sandwiches, and how bread and nuts don't mix? Well, if you use flaxseed crackers, which are already a seed/nut to begin with, for the bread, you can spread on the tahini, pumpkin seed cheese or raw almond butter to your heart's delight! Enjoy!

Travel Tips for Road Trips & Waiting Rooms

For the past six months I've been spending most of my Wednesday afternoons driving down from where I live, in rural Western Massachusetts, to my mother's apartment in Westchester County, NY.

The reason for these 3-hour road trips isn't just to visit. Mom has lymphoma and she's undergoing an intensive chemotherapy treatment at Memorial Sloan-Kettering in New York City. So three weeks out of four, I drive down to her place on Wednesdays and on Thursdays, we drive into the city together to the hospital. There she gets bled, examined and hooked up to an IV drip.

The IV is administered through a port that lies underneath the skin of her chest, providing easy to access her bloodlines. The treatment itself lasts from 3 to 7 hours, depending on the day's menu. When it's all over, Mom surrenders one more vial of blood and then we can leave. I drive us back to her place, and either spend another night there or come back home that same day - meaning another 3 or more hours in the car for me, as traffic dictates.

It's a lot, and I am glad to do it. It is a privilege to have this opportunity to care for my mother; it is hard on all of us, and it is life, and it is real.

Spending one day a week in a cancer hospital for the past six months has changed me. I see people of all ages, including very young children in strollers, dealing with this horrible disease. A disease that could very well kill any one of us some day, sooner or later. The fear of death, the dark promise of Cancer, drives all these stricken people, young and old, to seek the very best medical care in the country, as MSK is known to provide. And this care, we know, this cure is poison.

Nutrition is never mentioned in my mother's weekly sessions with the doctor. Never. Nor are supplements, many of which I believe could be very useful in helping to safely counteract the depleting "side effects" of drugs and radiation. Noone ever suggests she eliminate sugar, for instance, cancer's favorite food. Or that CoQ10 might help boost her energy levels, especially since the Lipitor she takes for her high cholesterol depletes all of her own CoQ10, a required compound for energy production.

When I was younger, I would have been irate at this ignorance, and spoken out, but I am older and wiser now, and I know how to choose my battles. My mother made it clear to me last year, in a very heartfelt and tearful conversation, that she is "a medical person, not an alternative person," and she does not want me to suggest, recommend or even mention any therapy, nutritional or otherwise, to her or her chosen caregivers. She respects my accomplishments in my field, but she does not want my help.

So be it. I must respect her wishes and love her as she is, where she is and for who she is. There is nothing else to do, because this is the way things are! My lesson is to accept and to love, unconditionally, without trying to force change where it is not wanted.

Meanwhile, the nurses in the chemo ward are very interested in my work! They were talking about juicing one day, and I joined the conversation, and the next thing you know, I was offering nutritional counseling to one of my mother's wonderful nurses. This lovely young woman is thrilled to have lost 5 pounds in her first week on the program, and others want to follow with appointments of their own. So through the back door of MSK, detox is coming in! (Of course I recommended The Raw Food Detox Diet as a resource, along with my co-authored book, Teri Kerr's Ultimate Detox Diet.)

All this is very thought-provoking and, in terms of the nurses, even exciting, but what I really wanted to write about here was how I manage to eat well and stay "on track" with traveling back and forth, city and highway driving, long hours in the hospital, stress, etc. Here are a few of my tricks.

BREAKFAST: Before I leave home, I make veggie juice or a smoothie with fruit+greens to bring with me in glass mason jars. (Depending on how long I'll be down, I may pre- freeze or super-chill to a slush.) Then, I just bring my jar (with a straw) to the hospital and drink in the waiting room when I get hungry, usually late morning. Yesterday, it was a smoothie: apple-blueberry-parsley-pear with 1 tsp each raw coconut oil, maca and lucuma, a pinch of celtic sea salt and a sprinkle of cinnamon. Very tasty! (Note: If I forget to make drinks in advance, I’ll just have tea and eat fruit - typically, a banana - in the morning. You can always find fruit.)

LUNCH: There is a decent salad bar at MSK, with plain balsamic vinegar available for dressing. Raw veggies, cooked veggies and sometimes shrimp or fish is offered. So usually, I'll get a big salad for lunch. Now that the weather is nice, it's also fun to take a little trip outside to the fruit stand around the corner and buy lunch in its whole form. This is what I did yesterday: a banana, two small avocados and some gigantic purple grapes. (Alas, grapes from Chile - not organic - so I gave them a good scrub in the sink and an infusion of healthy intention, prayer and light vibration.)

SNACK: If I get peckish in the afternoon and didn't bring a snack, I'll go downstairs to the gift shop and buy a bag of raw nuts and dried fruit. These basic, healthy traveler treats are sold in just about every little convenience store nowadays - even roadside gas stations. It's a blessing, really. Just a few decades ago, the only quick snack you could find that came anywhere close to decent were those little blue packets of roasted (and generally rancid) planters peanuts. No comparison.

DINNER: The A & P grocery near my Mom's house is not exactly a health food store, but they do sell organic baby carrots and organic romaine lettuce. So before heading home last night at 4:00, I bought a three pack of romaine, a big bag of baby carrots, and a hunk of sheep cheese (not raw, but the best choice they had: pecorino romano. Another option would have been organic raw cashews, but those are dangerous for me. I didn't want to be trapped in a car with a pound of raw cashews - you never know what might happen!) So, this simple fare was dinner. It was fun and rabbit-like, munching away on crunchy leaves and sweet carrots while driving north through a greening Connecticut. As night fell I ate my fill, and then topped it off a little while later with the second half of a special raw chocolate bar I'd been saving for the occasion (Sacred Chocolate 69%). Incredible!

BEDTIME SNACK: I don't usually eat after dinner, but long drives in traffic and late homecomings (it was about 8 and dark by the time I got home) may lead to discombobulation and exceptions to the rule. (Plus, as a former food addict, I make it a point not to have rules!) So, arriving home, I fixed myself a big mug of herb tea and nibbled on some pickled herring in the fridge. Herring, you ask? Yes, herring. It combined with the cheese (both fleshes) and it was there (purchased for my son), and I was tired, and all was good. Went to bed, woke up and it's a new day to breathe deep and be healthy.

So that's it, my travel tips for cancer trips - life force road food for the 21st Century.

Blessings and Light,
Diana

Parsley Pumpkin Seed Paté Roll-Ups

As a follow-up to my last blog on the Properly Combined Sandwich where I discussed how we don't want to eat bread (starch) and protein at the same meal, I thought I'd share a yummy and fun sandwich-like protein-combo lunch meal: nori roll-ups with a delicious filling of rich, savory seed cheese (protein) and chopped salad. Earlier today, a client was curious about how to make both seed cheese and nori rolls, so I decided to post a little step-by-step excursion here. You'll find the recipe for Parsley Pumpkin Seed Paté at the end.

Learning to make soaked seed/nut "cheeses" and patés is one of the best culinary steps I ever made. Since seeds are easier to digest, less expensive and less allergenic than most tree nuts, I like to focus on them. Soaked raw seeds and nuts offer the advantage of activated enzymes that initiate the breakdown of nut/seed proteins into amino acids (pre-digestion). As a bonus, they move through the body far more quickly than plain unsoaked seeds/nuts, nut butters and hummus or bean spreads. The spreads I make taste different every time depending on what seeds or nuts and seasonings I use, and are always fabulously satisfying.

To make Parsley Pumpkin Seed Paté Roll-Ups, first prepare your paté (easy recipe below) and your chopped salad, lightly dressed. My salad contained romaine, baby spinach, roma tomato and fresh garlic, all chopped and tossed with a tasty dressing of balsamic vinegar, mustard, novella olive oil, sea salt, agave and herbs.

Note: the packet of 50 nori sheets pictured above was purchased for only $7.99 at my wonderful local Asian/World food market. Sadly, the same sheets cost significantly more at the health food store. Many communities harbor these treasure trove Asian food stores - I am very grateful for mine. (This is where I learned from a master how to open a young coconut. Very easy once you know the secret!)

Step One: Lay nori sheet flat and spread a line of pumpkin seed cheese along the base (left/lower roll below). Leave room at the sides as contents will smush outward when you roll up. (FYI, you could lay out thick slices of avocado instead of seed paté - but not avocado and nuts/seeds in the same roll, please - too heavy!)


Step Two: Add a few spoonfuls of chopped salad (upper roll above), again keeping the one inch at each end free of filling.

Step Three: Stand behind the filling side of the roll and start rolling! (Don't worry about perfection, a few lumps are not a problem and after a little practice, you'll be an expert.) Just before you get to the end, dip your finger in cold water and wet the top edge of the sheet to help seal, then finish the roll.

Step Four: Plate, add raw veggie garnishes* and voila! Lunch is served. Bon appetit!


Parsley Pumpkin Seed Paté

1 cup raw pumpkin seeds, soaked 2-4 hours and drained
1/2 cup pine nuts
1 clove garlic
1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt
1 lemon's juice
3 Tbs cold-pressed raw olive oil
1 tsp raw coconut oil (optional)
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley (about 3 stalks)
black pepper to taste
about 1/4 cup water, more or less as needed

Place pumpkin seeds, pine nuts, garlic and sea salt in food processor, then pulse and process with S blade into a fine meal consistency. Add lemon juice and oils and begin to process. As needed, add just enough water to help get things rolling smoothly. Process for several minutes until very well combined and creamy, pausing from time to time and using a spatula to bring everything down into the center until it really catches. When the paté is very creamy and seems finished, add parsley and black pepper and pulse-process until mixed through. Store refrigerated, either in a container to use as spread or, if you want to be fancy, as a log, like chevre. (To do this, use clean hands and shape into log form; roll in additional parsley or black pepper if desired; wrap in waxed paper or plastic film.) Keeps up to 5 days.

* One summer long ago, I worked at Friendly's as a waitress. Part of my job was to garnish the plates with pickles and parsley before taking them out to the customers. "Don't forget your pickles and parsley!" was the rallying cry of my manager. Of course, we would only use a tiny sprig of parsley, but I remember thinking how that brave little sprig, the only living thing on the plate, was no doubt the healthiest item on the menu.