I admit that the unit I was least looking forward to in the Plant-Based Professional culinary course that I just finished was the raw gastronomy. The extent of my raw food experience was visiting a raw restaurant in San Diego about 10 years ago. It was delicious, but my dabbling ended there.

But you know what? It ended up being a fascinating topic. I love learning new and creative ways to make foods, and the techniques involved in raw gastronomy are really interesting.

One of the assignments was to create a raw pâté from soaked nuts or seeds. The sample recipe used almonds, but I had a slew of raw sunflower seeds on hand and decided to give them a whirl. Figuratively and literally.

First, you soak the sunflower seeds in water. Then, you blend them up with garlic, lemon, salt … whatever you like. The result is light-colored and smooth (not silky smooth, but smooth enough) – and really addictingly tasty.

The possibilities are pretty endless, but in this case, I wanted to make a healthy canapé.

One of my favorite recipes before becoming vegetarian, many years ago, was a smoked salmon ball. And while I haven’t made that in years, I thought it would be fun to try to recreate some of those flavors in this pâté. So I added dill and smoked paprika and while, of course, not an exact replica, the smoky flavors are perfect with the dill and cucumber.

(Note that the smoked paprika is not officially raw because it reaches a temperature higher than is required to qualify as raw food. So if you’re on a raw diet, you might want to leave it out.)

I love this smoky sunflower seed pâté, and I love these appetizers, too!

For my plant-based party, I decided to garnish the cucumber slices with borage flowers. I planted borage a few years ago to attract bees to the veggie garden. I knew they were edible (apparently, they taste mildly of cucumber) but never had the guts to actually eat them. Until now. They ended up making a beautiful garnish, though you couldn’t actually taste them at all.

Sunflower seed pâté is officially a part of my life now, and this easy cucumber appetizer is going to be coming out of my kitchen often. It’s so easy to make the pâté ahead of time, squeeze it on, garnish, and serve.

Oh, and you could totally swap out the borage for cherry tomato halves and you have the perfect Christmas appetizer! See?!

Okay, now please forget that I mentioned Christmas.

(more…)

The post Cucumber Slices with Smoky Sunflower Seed Pâté appeared first on Kitchen Treaty.

These cute candy eyes are everywhere, and this year, I decided my daughter and I needed to bake up a fun Halloween treat with them. So I bought some, not knowing quite yet what we’d make. Maybe cupcakes. Or candy bark. Or cookies. Or doughnuts! Cute, right?

But while I was spending days contemplating, my daughter was growing more and more restless. Those candy eyes stared at her from the kitchen counter – literally. Finally, I broke down. Okay, okay kid! We’ll do something with the darn eyes already!

10 minutes later, we were building snack mix monsters.

The rules are as follows:

1. First, you have to make a monster.
2. Then you eat the monster.
3. Repeat!

It’s highly fun for kids and adults alike, honestly. And trust me – we’ve been playing with this Halloween snack mix every day for the past week, kid’s request. She loves the stuff.

Especially the M&Ms and the candy eyeballs. My little sweet-toothed gal seems to build monsters that have quite a few of both of those. Conveniently.

What I usually do is divvy out a small cup or bowlful of snack mix at a time to encourage her to use – and eat – all of the ingredients in the trail mix – the good stuff too, not just the sweets.

Another option, if you would like to be more health-conscious, is to leave out the candy entirely. There’s plenty of ghoulish goodness you can make with sunflower seeds (teeth!), pepitas (excellent noses!), almonds (for everything!), cashews, dried fruits, healthier cereals … really, you can put whatever you want into the mix, and you and the kids can still have lots of fun with it. (Though if you’re making it for a classroom, be sure and follow any allergy policies and swap out the nuts and/or seeds as needed. It’s a completely flexible situation!)

I see you!

I think this snack mix would be perfect for a kid’s Halloween party, or even just a fun playdate snack/activity. I plan to bring a revised version for preschool snack later this month – no nuts or candy for that bunch, but it should still be just as fun. 2018 update: I’ve brought versions of this to two classroom parties since publishing this post, and it’s been a huge hit every time!

Free printable

Here’s a free printable flag for your make-a-monster trail mix! Just download, print it out, cut it out, and use some double-stick tape to adhere it to the top of a bamboo skewer. Be sure to trim off the sharp pointy end (best be safe!) Then just stick it right in to your bowl of trail mix.

Download “Make a Monster – Eat Him Up” printable (PDF)

Print

Make-a-Monster Halloween Snack Mix

Holy beastly goodness! Googly eyes, cereal ears, raisin noses, pretzel heads ...  they'll love creating creatures with this ghoulishly silly snack and activity rolled into one.

Prep Time 5 minutes minutes

Total Time 5 minutes minutes

Author Kare

Ingredients

• 1 .88 ounce package candy eyeballs
• 2 cups mini pretzels
• 1 cup corn puff cereal
• 1 cup Os cereal
• 3/4 cup M&Ms
• 1/2 cup slivered almonds
• 1/2 cup pepitas
• 1/2 cup raisins
• Anything else you want!

Instructions

• Pour all ingredients into a large bowl and toss with your clean hands or a large wooden spoon. Done! I like to serve it in individual cups.
• Stores for at least a couple of weeks in a zipper bag or an airtight container.

Notes

Gluten-Free Option

Choose gluten-free cereals. Judging by the list of ingredients on my particular candy eyeballs package, they appear to be gluten-free, but please use your own judgment!

Refined Sugar-Free Option

Omit candy eyeballs and M&Ms. Choose sugar-free or refined-sugar-free cereals.

Vegan/Dairy-Free Options

I'm not sure if store-bought candy eyeballs are vegan (sorry). To be safe - or just to have fun - perhaps try this homemade googly eyes recipe. So awesome!

Nut-free Option

Omit the almonds.

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