I‘ve done a post in the past on fruit peels, how to make them, why they are better than the store-bought peels and how easy it is to make them. This month I tried my hand at Plain Ole Blueberry and I also did a batch of Luscious Cherry Cacao! The cherry cacao peels are fantastic for this time of the year and I think I may even make another batch near Valentine’s Day for Valentine gifts. Below is a Blueberry Peel on the left and Cherry Cacao on the left.

The Cherry Cacao Peel was a huge pain in the butt to dehydrate. I had them in the dehydrator for around 15 hours. I’m going to take a stab at guessing it’s because cherries are so juicy that it took longer to take the moisture out of them. Once they were done it was difficult to get the peel off of the Teflon tray, to cut & roll them into scrolls. But totally worth it 😀 Possibly beats my previous favorite fruit peel, Cinnamon Pear.

I made a small batch of Raw Vegan Cacao Dipped Strawberries.

The dip isn’t as thick as the store bought chocolate, so please don’t go in thinking it’s going to end up like that. It’s more of a syrup. I didn’t write down the measurements as I went along, it really depends on how thick you would like the chocolate, sweet, rich and so on. But this is roughly the recipe when using 8 Strawberries & your dehydrator set at 105 degrees:

About 2-3 tablespoons Coconut Nectar

1-teaspoon Coconut Butter

Cacao according to taste (I used a tablespoon and a half)

A tablespoon or 2 of water to help stir everything evenly

I dipped eat strawberry into the chocolate and rotated the strawberries every 2 hours or so.

I also tried my hand at making Banana Chips! One tray of the classic style and another with Cinnamon Nutmeg & Vanilla (apparently I really enjoy warm flavors). I ate all of the Cinnamon Nutmeg Vanilla Banana Chips in one sitting :X, which is one small banana. Here are before hydration and after photos of Cinnamon Nutmeg Vanilla Banana Chips. I cut them thin but not paper-thin; I wanted them to be slightly chewy in the middle with a satisfying crunch on the outside. The second set of photos is the Plain Banana Chips.

Plain Banana Chips

Banana chips are a great snack to keep around. They are fun to eat and taste a little sweeter from being dehydrated. It’s easy to store these, just keep them in a jar or air tight container. If you would like to do something different with these you can put nut better, jelly or raisins on them. Add banana chips to your favorite granola, breakfast cereal or wrap. Have fun and stack them up with fruit in between even 🙂 Bananas provide energy, potassium, magnesium, and are beneficial to eye health, anemia, depression, bones, kidneys, stress and some have even been able to quit smoking by upping their banana intake. They are also one of the most beneficial foods to have after a workout since it is easy for your body to convert it into energy.

Today I am trying to make banana chips with plantains, oh my goodness they are so adorable. I kind held onto them in the grocery store, like I was hugging them 🙂 Helllllooooo cuties!

I cut this super duper thin, just to experiment with it really. I cut around 8 plantains and look at how many soon to be chips I ended up with.

I put them in around 9:20pm last night after coming home from the store. Right now it is 12:35pm, let’s see how they look.

They are chewy in the center, slightly crunchy, have a nice tug when I bite into them, the after taste is super sweet and they have more of the taste that bananas have when they aren’t ripe. It’s crazy how much darker these look in the middle. I’m guessing it’s because of this type of banana. Even when I sliced them they were getting dark faster than plain ole bananas. I have about 8 plantain bananas left, and I have a few crazy ideas on what to do with them 🙂 mwahaha!

Today I will be testing out a Raw Spaghetti and Beet Balls recipe from ChoosingRaw.com. The pulp from juicing beets is used to make the beet balls; I love this idea of using the pulp! It’s great how easy it is to reuse things with raw food. I am not going to be using almond pulp in this recipe and there are a few other things I will change. My stomach just can’t do nuts 😦 I’m thinking about putting more flax meal or using pulp from carrots to help bind the beet balls.

I have some reviews and recipes to share from some juicing books that I’ll save for another day. Thank you for reading! I’ll be writing about my experience with the recipe from choosingraw.com on raw spaghetti and beet balls.

xoxo

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