Raw Buckwheat Pizza

…….Last weekend the theme at our local farmers’ market in Oneonta New York  was food-for-health. Some might not have noticed with all those belly-dancers there. But those who came to our table had a memorable event.

For  my friend Dana asked me to do a display of raw, living, local organic foods. Thus I brought my assortment of sprouts, micro-greens and something special - raw buckwheat pizza. The farmer’s market and the local Green Earth Health Food Store donated ingredients. The pizza was a big hit.

However, this was a new recipe for me and thus all the more fun to prepare at 2am the night before. Thank God I had help so that I could get to sleep at 4am. And all the effort was worth it!

In the past I had been used to making the pizza crust with either sprouted wheat berries or rye. Buckwheat is actually easier to sprout and is not a grain technically. It just tastes like a grain, is highly nutritious and is a relative of the rhubarb seed…and so this avoids confronting gluten or grain allergies.

The recipe is fairly simple though there are several steps to it and it takes time, but its worth it!

Preparing a Sprouted Buckwheat Pizza Crust

VEGETABLE IN SPICES – First we take on bunch of celery hearts, a cup of tomatoes, half an onion and some spices (a little basil, parsley, 2 cloves of garlic and a sweetener). For the latter and to keep things local, I used garlic, stevia, parsley and basil from our organic garden. All of these are put into a food processor.

SPROUTED BUCKWHEAT GROATS - Then we slowly add 5 1/2 cups of sprouted buckwheat. To make sprouted buckwheat soak the hulled groats for 8-10 hours. You can soak them in a bowl in the am and take them out to sprout in the pm, or visa versa. Then let them sprout for at least a day or two until the buckwheat develops its tails. It is then most alive and nutritious. We also make buckwheat groats that are chewing for breakfast by putting them in a dehydrator for a day and then adding some fruit and nut milk. We did that with the excess buckwheat that was left over after sorting out 5 1/2 cups for the pizza.

FLAXSEED MEAL - Lastly slowly add two cups of flaxseed meal which you can make in a coffee grinder. This gives the pizza crust its firmness.

If the consistency of this whole mix in the food processor is too wet then add more flaxseed. I have even added some whole, unground or whole flaxseed to give the crust more texture as well as nutrition.

PUTTING IT ALL IN THE DEHYDRATOR – We use a 14 inch square dehydrator instead of an oven to bake the pizza crust. This allows us to bake it no more than at 105 degrees which preserves the aliveness and super high nutrition of the ingredients. You can use olive-oiled hands or plastic gloves to put down the batter and so it does not stick to your hands but to the dehydrator trays instead. It takes 5-6 hours minimum time at 105 degrees for the crust to start hardening in the dehydrator.

Preparing the Nut Cheez

You can make a “nut Parmesan cheez” using a half pound each of ground brazil  nuts and walnuts. add 4 cloves of crushed garlic and some salt and italian seasoning. Paprika or cayenne pepper is optional to give it color and a hot flavor. You can also make a more soupy white nut  cheez by mixing 2 cups of cashew or macademia nuts with a little onion, lemon juice and salt. Blend it all together and put it into a plastic bag. Then cut the corner with a small opening so you can squeeze out the nut cheeze to form any pattern you like on the pizza

Raw Pizza Tomato Sauce

A great tomato sauce will end up being sweat. So here is how it is done. Slice up 3 cups of roma tomatoes. Add  1 1/2 cups of raisins or your favorite dried fruit (substitute stevia if you are sensitive to the sugar content). The spice it further up with the juice of a whole lemon, a pinch of Himalayan salt, some Italian seasoning, including basil and a clove of garlic – and voila you have a dynamite sauce.

Toppings

Last we prepare the toppings and here you can let your creativity go wild. We used sliced tomatoes, some garden parsley, a couple of mushrooms, sliced zucchini and peppers from a local farm, and garnished the whole pizza with edible flowers from our own garden.

Another idea I like is to do an eggplant or essentially olive and mushroom toppings. Remember to let your creativity go wild, including with the use of wild, local herbs.

Putting It All Together

Here are the steps I recommend

1. Put on your tomato sauce.
2. Add some thin slices of tomatoes.
3. Next put on your additional toppings
4. Then add the one or two kinds of nut cheezes
5. Lastly add your garnishing to the plate

There you have it.

I promise you that you won’t believe the yummy, delicious taste…with the bonus of super-nutrition

Nathan Batalion CT

For another take on raw buckwheat pizza see:

HOW TO MAKE RAW (LIVING FOOD) VEGAN SUSHI

In the process of developing a sumptuous Raw Vegan Sushi recipe, we found that whole  Sprouts could serve as a substitute for sushi rice but did not hold very well.

So improvising, we put a few handfuls of Mung Bean Sprouts in the food processor and this mixture stayed together quite well.

Here is our original raw vegan recipe:

INGREDIENTS  FOR TWO DOZEN RAW VEGAN SUSHI

• Handful of Sprouted Mung Beans
• Handful of  Sprouted Lentils
• 2 sticks Celery, sliced julienne
• ½ Cucumber, sliced julienne
• ¼ Red Onion sliced julienne
• 2  Avocados, sliced thickly
• 1-2 tbs Sauerkraut
• 4-5 Nori Sheets
• Pinch of Soy Sauce
• 1 tbs Sesame Seeds
• Pinch of  Ginger, shredded
• (optional) – use a couple sliced Cherry Tomatoes, slices of Red Peppers or
  Red Cabbage to add the respective flavors and vibrant color to your raw vegan sushi
• (optional) Handful of Chinese  Cabbage  Leaves for more of the oriental flavor

FURTHER RAW VEGAN SUSHI INSTRUCTIONS

• Pour the Sprouts into a food processor so that they make a thick paste. Add a dash of Sesame Oil and the shredded Ginger.
• Place the sheet of  Nori, shiny side down (the perforations should run vertically), on a bamboo sushi mat.
• Spread the Mung  Bean mixture onto the Nori. ( should cover slightly less than half the sheet and be about half a centimeter thick).
• Take a small amount of all the remaining ingredients and place them along the width of the nori and on top of the mung bean mixture.
• Allow for the Celery, Cucumber and Avocado to come over the sides slightly.
• The bamboo mat can now be used to roll the sushi. Leave a 1cm/ ½ inch or a slight edge at the end of the Nori to spread with water to hold it together.
• Then press down gently.
• Now cut the sushi into 2cm or about an inch pieces

Serve on a bed of green leaves, your choice, and garnished with further kinds of sprouts flavored with soy sauce ….and  you are now ready to enjoy the best of raw vegan sushi!

Ever been asked ….

WHY GO RAW?

Please don’t stand before the whole universe mind-naked…. and tongue-tied trying to figure it out!

Here’s one  way of putting it to words:

Why Raw Foods?

Raw Food Blueberry Mandala

Ok. You’ve decided to go raw or at least try it. But after a while things go stale. You’ve got the same things over and over again in the frig. and you fall back thus on old habits and cravings because your not satisfied.

What do do?

One of the most exciting websites I’ve found to help with such doldrums is http://www.goneraw.com/ They have tantalizing and refreshing raw vegan recipes, well displayed and explained, that can get you back into the groove. So what are you waiting for. Check it out!

Our locally-held Sproutman talk and potluck with live music was a great success.

With the potluck came some special dishes, including a raw, sprout (or sprouted) pizza that was “mamma mia good.”

We will make up some Youtube footage of the event. As always, the Sproutman or Steve Meyerowitz’s talk was incredible. He is so knowledgeable and inspirational to us all. With his many unique inventions to help the sprouting process, he has made invaluable contributions to the living foods movement. Well, I could go on with praise for sometime, but without further ado I want to share with you our great pizza recipe for that event. So here it is:

SPROUT CRUST

INGREDIENTS
4 cups of red hard wheat berries
1 clove of garlic
1 medium onion
Italian seasoning
pinch of dulse
1 tablespoon of Bragg’s Aminos
Sprout, grind, and mix with ingredients
Set sit for 24 hours to sour and then bake in dehydrator until crisp

SPROUT PIZZA SAUCE

BLEND THE FOLLOWING INGREDIENTS

4 tomatoes
Italian seasoning
½ cup of kimchee
1 clove garlic
¼ large onion
pinch of dulse
teaspoon of lime
(no water)
Tablespoon of Bragg’s Aminos
¼ cup of aromatic, cold-pressed olive oil
¼ cup of fenugreek or favorite sprouts

“SPROUT PIZZA CHEESE”
Grind two cups of cashews

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
Spread the sprout pizza sauce, garnishing veggies and sprouts on the sprout pizza crust and add “sprout pizza cheese” on top. We used broccoli in the center, and then cut in half cherry tomatoes and cucumber slivers. We laid this out in a floral or radiating-from-the-center manner.  Alternatively you can garnish with many other veggies, such as mushrooms, cut olives, and sprinklings of basil leaves – and a variety of sprouts or sprout greens as in the sunflower greens shown above.

Now warm to serve in dehydrator and oh my….enjoy!

RAW ADVENTURE
My name is April Stevenson and I’m visiting the Raw-Wisdom Community and volunteering with Nathan  in Oneonta, New York. This visit is my first full-fledged venture into a raw food diet and I’ve been really enjoying it.

FRUGAL INSPIRATION FOR MAKING RAW VEGGIE BURGERS
This past Thursday morning we both decided (and because lunch on Wednesday afternoon was so filling and required so much chewing) that we could use a break. We therefore opted to have juiced fruits & vegetables for breakfast and instead of anything heavier. The juice ingredients included  plum tomatoes, carrots, ginger, garlic, broccoli rabe (rapini), kale and leeks. The drink was most refreshing and had quite a strong taste. Though composting is done here, I felt the juice pulp leftovers should still be eaten too. Thus Nathan suggested making veggie burger patties with the remaining pulp. For further inspiration he referred me to read “The Raw Gourmet” by Nomi Shannon where on page 134 there was a neat recipe for Lentil Burgers.

GIVING IT A TRY
For my own purposes, however, I didn’t follow that because I’m really not, you might say, a precision “recipe person.” Normally I’m just content with winging it. Besides, seeing how all the ingredients are truly healthy and flavorful, I think it’s hard to have an undesirable result (unless you really go overboard with certain strong-tasting spices or foods). Getting back to our burgers, Nathan encouraged me to give it a go….. and I did.

OUR MODIFIED RECIPE
I started by juicing a few more items, namely a couple lemons and a handful of celery stalks. This I combined in the food processor with the leftover pulp plus about a cup of sprouted lentils. Before processing all of this, I also used an inexpensive coffee/spice grinder and filled the grinder’s cup with brown flax seeds plus a little bit of  Gopal’s Rawmesan (Parmesan cheese replacement), Celtic Sea Salt, Organic Caribbean Season by Sharp Labs Inc.

COMBING IT ALL
Again I am not the kind to measure things exactly (too left-brain). I rather like to experiment. So feel free to do the same yourself! Putting this all together, I combined the pulp ingredients and seasoning and let this spin in the food processor for about 3 minutes. When the mixture reached a bulky consistency I was comfortable with, I then formed the veggie patties and in a size not larger than my hand. I ending up with a total of nine and placed them on trays in the very cool Excalibur Food Dehydrator. The setting at which I left them on was about 105 degrees (marked the “living food” setting). By the time we got back in the evening, the burgers were ready to eat for supper (though you can, of course, have them at any point of the day).

MMM…HOW MOST DELICIOUS
Our veggie burgers were really delicious, very flavorful (of course not greasy or fried at all) and they didn’t leave me feeling full or weighed down. I just LOVE knowing how far all that raw food stretched!  So happy eating!