chocolate, nuts and seeds

thought i'd mention some commercially available things i've tried lately.




i dont think the bumble bar is actually raw, but it's pretty darn close. it has whole flax and seasame seeds with agave, cocoa, nuts, and other things. i'm not sure if they cook it or not. it's not cake like, more chewy, and sticky like the raw bar i tried. it comes in a lot of flavors. i tried the chocolate cherry and it was yummy.

the cocoa nibs and cashews were good too. i like the nibs, they were the softest i'd ever had, with no hard stem or shell parts. maybe they aren't even dehydrated. the palm nectar on them made it sweet enough to cover the bitterness a little.



i've been putting sprouted almonds in my buckwheat cereal. i acutally just soak and srpuit them together, so it's super easy. my store sells sprouted raw almonds for 15 dollars a pound, but i just have a bag of raw almonds from costco in my freezer and puull out what i need.


sprouted almonds are hollow, since they've started the growing process, and the water made them swell.

Fuzzy brown balls.

The story of the kiwis.

the box of overipe fruit i bought for three or four dollars.

i think there was like 30 kiwis in there.

i just sliced off the top and bottom, and cut in half

i love the bright jade color


time to JUICE!
( i tried to turn the sound way down on this, since it's just loud juicing motor noise. I feel like this is some kind of fetish porn for people who REALLY like juicing.)


after all those kiwis, i ended up with a lot of juice



and a lot of the rest.(seeds, skins, fiber..)



which i made into a crucnhy fruit leather right away



it turned a brown color as it oxidizes, but still good of ,course.

the rest went into the freezer until i could find another use for it.


so i've been thinking about moving soon, and thus cleaning out the freezer. so i looked for kiwi heavy recipes. and there were some for fruit leather. since i don't really want to drink all this sour juice, i thought i'd try dehydrating it. it's not entirely liquid, more slushy. we'll see what happens. maybe it'll all evaporate away and i'll be left with nothing. i added about two tablespoons of sugar to that middle size container of juice (thawed) and put it on plastic wrap in the dehydrator.

science!

juice on the plastic wrap



dried leather. it was sweet enough and sticky and tasty. even my boyfriend said it was yummy.


when i tried it a little too long, it became brittle.
it loks like stained glass.

SongCroft

This post is way overdue since this event was on 10/10/10. SongCroft is a very small family farm. more like a house with a large garden, lots of pets, and a forested field. the couple teaches small groups of people to be more self-suffient, with gardening, canning, bee keeping, and animal care.
this event at song croft was part of 350.org, to raise awareness of greenhouses gases, and they celebrated withe a barter fair to encourage local trading and reusing, and a cider pressing of the fall apple harvests.
http://songcroft.com/
i really liked the place (wish it was my house!)

Ducks in a row


little boy at the cider mill. Raw apple cider for all!



broccoli


chard , i didn't realize until now that their dog, Willow, is in this picture.



Sweetie Dairy goats. Raw milk right in their back yard!









Chickens! i think they have 43!






Bunny that lives in the greenhouse