Juice Bread

I have been juicing a lot. I don't have one of those fancy juicers that delivers your baby for you, just a $25 garage sale juicer that has served me well so far (not pregnant yet). Carrots, spinach, kale, pears, apples, celery, cilantro, parsley, beets, cucumber, ginger... every vegetable gets a ride down the super happy fun tube. After the fun tube we usually make our way to the whirly twirly vita mix where we take a spin with Mr. Hemp, Mrs. Strawberry and their associates.

You might be wondering why I don't just whole food juice all of the vegetables in the vita mix. Well friend, that is because I like to make vegetable bread out of the pulp left over from juicing. So many different flavours every day, always a new bread or new cracker to be made.

Do you remember those Mr. Christie Vegetable Thins when you were a kid? Didn't your mom put them in your lunch all the time? What about the onion crackers with poppy seeds that made your breath quite foul? My vegetable crackers and onion crackers don't taste like those, but I just realized that I might be trying to subconsciously recreate them in super health form.

So basically I make bread and crackers from the same batter, it all depends on how thick you spread it on the teflex sheet (dehydrator sheet). Every vegetable bread recipe is different because I juice different things every day. This is a recipe I wrote down the other day, it is the red-ish crackers on the left in the picture below.


Red Vegetable Crackers/Bread

Pulp from juicing:
1 beet
2 celery stalks
3 carrots
1 pear
inch nub ginger skin on
1/3 cucumber skin on

Drink juice.

Add pulp to food processor with:
1 small zucchini, skin on, cut into chunks
2 onions, cut into chunks
approx 1 or 2 teaspoons pink peppercorns
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup braggs liquid soy/liquid aminos (I do not use Nama Shoyu because it contains wheat)
1/4 cup chia seeds, ground up (makes about 1/2 cup ground) (I do not use flax because I am intolerant to it)
1/4 cup or less sunflower seeds

Process until smooth, spread on teflex sheets thin (about 1/2 cm) or thick (1-1.5cm). Crackers or bread. Dehydrate at 105 degrees until tops are dry. Flip onto mesh screens to dry undersides. Dehydrate crackers until somewhat crispy. Dry bread until no longer wet but not crispy. You can choose to score the batter to define your cracker shape (top picture, far right) or just break apart into random shapes when dry.



Other variations:
Sometimes I will add nut flour left over from making nut milk (top picture frame, 3rd picture in, the light brown stuff), walnuts, cilantro, dill, cumin or whatever else is in the fridge or in the spice cupboard.


In the last picture frame above, the middle and right pictures are of onion crackers and onion bread. The onion bread is the base for all of the vegetable breads. I use one or 1.5 fewer onions when making vegetable crackers/bread.



Raw Onion Crackers/Bread

3 medium onions
1/4 cup chia seeds, ground (makes 1/2 cup ground)
1 cup sunflower seeds, soaked for a few hours, drained (soaking optional)
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup braggs liquid soy/liquid aminos

I always add a handful of fresh parsley and one stem worth of fresh rosemary when making plain onion batter.

Place everything in a food processor and blend until fairly smooth. Spread on teflex sheets and dry at 105 degrees until tops are dry. Flip onto mesh screens to dry undersides. Dehydrate crackers until somewhat crispy. Dry bread until no longer wet but not crispy (maybe 10-15 hours?)

The brown lines on the onion bread pictured below are my version of grill marks. I achieve this by slightly scoring the bread with a knife and spooning balsamic vinegar into the slits. No, balsamic vinegar is not raw, neither is braggs. Meh...


You can also make fantastic veggie burgers out of vegetable juice left-overs.
Never waste the pulp!