I Love Nachos Day!

Here's a grown-up version of nachos to celebrate the day. And while you're chowing down on the nachos read the "I Love Nachos Day" ecards you sent to each other.

Chili Lime Flax Crackers

1/2 cup ground brown flaxseeds

1/4 cup soaked golden flaxseeds

1/2 tablespoon chili powder

Juice of one lime

1/4 teaspoon sea salt

1 Combine ingredients in a large bowl until well mixed.

2 Spread mixture as thin as possible Teflex sheet.

3 Dehydrate at 110 degrees for 5 hours. Flip crackers over, remove teflex sheet and dehydrate an additional 5 hours.

Pepper Flax Crackers

1 cup soaked golden flaxseeds
1/2 tablespoon black pepper

1/2 tablespoon red pepper

Juice of one lime
1/4 teaspoon sea salt

1 Combine ingredients in a large bowl until well mixed.

2 Spread mixture as thin as possible Teflex sheet.

3 Dehydrate at 110 degrees for 4 hours. Flip crackers over, remove Teflex sheet and dehydrate an additional 4 hours.

“Refried Beans”
2 cups sunflower seeds, soaked for 2 hours
1 cup sun-dried tomatoes, soaked for 1 hour
½ teaspoon miso
3-4 tablespoon Mexican seasonings
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoon agave nectar
1 jalapeno, chopped
2 green onions, chopped
2-3 sprigs cilantro leaves only
Sea salt, to taste

1 Process all ingredients; expect jalapeno, onions and cilantro, in a food processor. Add a few tablespoons of water at a time and process until you get a smooth consistency.

2 Add jalapeno, onions and cilantro and pulse a few times to combine.

Pear Salsa

1 pear, finely diced

1/2 red bell pepper, finely diced

1/2 shallot, finely diced

1/2 jalapeno, finely diced

5 sprigs cilantro, leaves only

Juice of one half lime

1/4 teaspoon sea salt

Toss ingredients together.

As usual my dear hubbie doesn't work in measurements. I did pin him down (which was kind of fun) to give me the salsa ingredients.

Cory's salsa
tomatoes
garlic
onion
cilantro
jalapeno
lime juice
sea salt

Toss ingredients together.

Guacamole
one avocado
Cory's salsa

Sea salt, to taste

1 Peel and mash the avocado in a bowl.

2 Add one or two tablespoons of Cory's salsa. Combine well. Add sea salt

Other Nacho toppings
Avocado cubes

Black Olives

Green Olives
Jalapenos
Lettuce
Sour Cream
Walnut Taco Meat

Peach Jam with almond bars

A friend of mine suggested that I post the recipes gone "wrong" along with the ones that hit the mark. Here is one of those that went so wrong but didn't turn out half bad.

My first idea was to create a Peach Pie to celebrate National Peach Month, but that would be too easy. So I thought to create an almond biscotti with peach jam. Sounds tasty. And what you see is actually very tasty but an almond biscotti it ain't and the peach jam is more of a compote.

I used the recipe for a basic almond crust to make the biscotti and I rolled out the crust as thin as possible (but still keep some thickness for a biscotti) in hopes of it drying crispy in the dehydrator. Well 24 hours later at 110 degrees, I still have a chewy almond crust. I decided not to go past the 24 hour mark in the dehydrator, I figured if it wasn't happening in a day then for this recipe it wasn't happening.

So that is the tale how a crisp almond biscotti remained a chewy almond bar.

As far as the Peach Jam goes. It started out thick like a jam but the longer the fruit sits in a bit of sea salt and lemon juice the more peach juice it creates. It still tasted very good and I had no problem enjoying this recipe gone awry.

Almond Bars

2 c almonds, soaked for 6-8 hours
1 c dates, pitted and soaked for an hour, reserve soaking water
4 T reserved date water
1 T organic vanilla extract
Pinch of sea salt

In a food processor, process almonds, dates, date water, vanilla extract and sea salt until well combined. Remove and with a rolling pin spread mixture onto a teflex sheet. Dehydrate at 100 degrees overnight or 6-8 hours. Flip over and score into bars about 4 hours into the dehydrating time.

Peach Compote

5 c diced fresh peaches

Juice of one half lemon

1/4 c agave nectar

1/2 t cinnamon

1 pinch sea salt

In a bowl, toss ingredients together.