Yesterday, when my daughter arrived home, she was greeted with scent of banana and vegetable chips permeating the air.
“What are you making, mommy?” She peeked into the top tray of the 9 tray Excalibur dehydrator and spotted the banana chips. “Oh… I remember those!” She said excitedly. She loved banana chips as a toddler. My daughter hates store bought fruit chips but has always loved dehydrated chips. Homemade raw banana chips don’t have the added preservatives (and in some cases additional sweeteners) that our bodies don’t need.
A few trays down she saw the nutrient rich (high in fiber) veggie chips. What am I talking about, all the chips/crackers within the dehydrator are high in nutrients and they are so delicious! These chips are a mix of freshly chopped kale (stem removed and set aside for juicing) and juicer pulp. The pulp consisted of carrots, garlic, celery and ginger.
Additionally I added a some freshly ground Himalayan sea salt, cumin and coriander. The binding ingredient, was about a 1/4 cup of freshly ground raw golden flax seeds. Those four trays were prepared while she was at Art class with her friend. I held off making any more since I knew she’d want to help making some raw food treats.
Once she arrived home we made raw fruit chips/rollups.
And my daughter took control, deciding what juice she wanted to drink; apple & pineapple. After the juice was prepared, the fiber pulp was put into my Kitchen Aid food processor. Since the pulp was a bit dry, I poured some of the freshly prepared apple & pineapple juice into the Food processor. My daughter took over and processed until blended until smooth. I then added two ripe bananas and about 1/4 cup of raw golden flax seeds that I’d let soak for about thirty minutes. Again, she processed until everything was well blended. I see a lot of folks that make dehydrated snacks add a large amount of nuts & seeds to their blend. Sure they are healthy, but have you checked out how many calories and fat they have? I keep my fat intake below 10% daily. More on the reasoning behind that in another post…
Once everything was blended we moved onto the task of spreading everything onto the trays. I added teflex sheets to each dehydrator tray, and showed her how to spread the ‘dough.’ I told her to make sure she did not get too close to the edge. There was enough of this to cover three trays.
Throughout the evening, I caught my daughter sampling the banana chips. No, they weren’t finished but boy did they smell good. I guess she could not resist, eh? You know, she used to do something similar when she was a toddler. As soon as I would put the banana chips in her bowl, there she was ready to pounce on them and eat them. Sighs, some things never change… I guess! 😉
Here, they sell tapioca and banana chips but they deep fry them like the potato or sweet potato ones – they do not dehydrate them. Frying in oil, of course, means it isn’t so healthy.
suituapui recently posted..Slowly…
Yes @suituapui, They have deep fried chips here, I avoid those completely.
Aynaria recently posted..Something unexpected; 9 tray Excalibur dehydrator
WOW!!!!! Very nice! I hope to do at least one more ‘chip’ or ‘cracker’ this week using a mini zuke as I bought 3 of them this weekend. I only used one for the post I did today 🙂
Jennifer recently posted..Foods Of The Weekend
Thanks @Jennifer, The veggie chips are already gone and my daughter inhaled the banana chips.
Aynaria recently posted..Too much fat on a raw food diet?
Good problem to have, eh!?
Jennifer recently posted..What I Ate Wednesday – On Tuesday!
@Jennifer, Not if you plan to eat some of them yourself. 😉 I made more last evening though.
Aynaria recently posted..Natural nutrition & healing; What I’ve been reading
[…] One thing that became glaringly obvious, when observing some ‘raw food gurus’ raw food snacks was the high fat/calorie content in some of their preparations. Many of them were made using their food dehydrator. […]