Gift Mixes – Split Mung Bean Soup – Dehydrating – Soaked Almond Butter (Tuesday Twister – 12/1/09)

A Quick Announcement: Sarah Schatz @ Heart of Cooking has two new nourishing menu planners coming out – one is Just Desserts and the other is a Holiday Menu Planner – both for limited diets. She’s having a giveaway for 5 copies of her new planners! Visit her site to read more details and enter the giveaway. When you get to her site, click on “Blog” and then see the most recent post (at the time of this posting, anyway).

My Tuesday Twister posts are my weekly round-up of what’s going on in my kitchen and our lives, as it pertains to real food. So here we go – I’ll catch you up on what’s twisting in my kitchen this week!

To participate in the Tuesday Twister Blog Carnival, visit this post. See you there!

Besides Thanksgiving, which was pretty low-key for us, I feel like I didn’t do much in the kitchen. But I did alot of planning and thinking. In the coming weeks, I want to get into portable, nutritious foods, in a big way. My husband really wants us to be able to go hiking without packing a cooler. I’d like that, too. Here are the few things that I did do.

• Gift Mixes – I found some salt shakers – including a big Ball shaker with a handle – to use for herbed seasoning salt gift mixes. I also filled one jar with the 12-bean soup mix and took a picture, just so I could update the original post for 12-bean soup gift mix.
• Split Mung Bean Soup – In preparation for my guest post at The Nourishing Gourmet, we enjoyed split mung bean soup. In fact, I have more beans soaking to make this soup for lunch today – it is so yummy! This time I am going to use the suggestion by Nurturing Wisdom (in the comments) – I added brown rice to the soaking step.
• Dehydrating Oats and Sprouted Spelt – I shared the oat task with Haniya, as both she and I are going to use these. We soaked 14 cups of thick rolled oats in water and apple cider vinegar overnight. Then the next morning, we drained and rinsed the oats, then spread them on about 8 dehydrator trays. They took about 24 hours to fully dry to a crisp state. They are yummy as is! I keep having to shoo everyone away from the bowl. Haniya wants to make no-bake cookies (I will then update this recipe) and I want to make granola bars. Oats have a high amount of phytic acid (which interferes with mineral absorption), and the soaking step neutralizes it. It is the only way Haniya can eat oats. The sprouted spelt? Well, we were ready for another batch to keep us in supply with sprouted spelt flour. When I do the sprouted grains, I do alot of them and fill at least 8 trays in the dehydrator. Then we have plenty for a few weeks. (Edit: Haniya made her cookies – they are HERE.)
• Soaked Almond Butter – Another updated recipe! It was really easy to make the soaked almond butter. I started with crispy nuts ala Nourishing Traditions (soak nuts in salty water overnight, then drain, rinse, and dehydrate until crispy.) Adding this step ensures that enzyme inhibitors don’t get in the way of making the almond butter a great source of digestive enzymes! Then I ground up the soaked/dehydrated nuts in the food processor, adding a little mild oil to increase fluidity. We will use this almond butter in the no-bake cookies that Haniya is going to make today.

So, that’s it for me – what’s twisting in your kitchen? To participate in the Tuesday Twister Blog Carnival, visit this post. See you there!

The Gallery of Christmas Cookies is coming up on Monday, the 14th of December. Do you have a real food cookie recipe to contribute? Please do!