The Organic Climber – Blogging about climbing, RAW foods, vegetarianism, running and cycling.

Seasoned Lemon Pepper Cashews

Lately, one of my favorite snacks has been seasoned cashews. I have been creating a lot of batches in the dehydrator lately, and occasionally buying some store bought versions. I’m a huge fan of seasoning up cashews because of their light taste, which really allows for the flavoring to come alive!

I recently picked up a batch of raw cashews from HEB to make my first batch of seasoned nuts since moving to Austin. As I was exiting the isle, I noticed they had a lot of bulk seasoning mixes on the end-cap. After browsing through them, the lemon pepper seasoning stuck out to me the most, so I thought I would try seasoning up some of the cashews with this flavor.

The result was a huge success. I ate almost half the batch before they even finished drying. My fiancé also commented on how awesome they were. So, I am really excited about sharing this simple recipe that is easy to make, even without a dehydrator.

The Recipe

• 2 cups of raw cashews
• 2.5 TBSP of lemon pepper seasoning
• enough water to cover the cashews

Directions

1. Place the raw cashews into a large mixing bowl and fill with water just until they are completely covered and let soak for two or more hours (filtered water is best)
2. Drain the water from the bowl
3. Sprinkle half the lemon pepper seasoning into the bowl and mix thoroughly
4. Sprinkle in the remaining seasoning and mix thoroughly
5. If you have a food dehydrator, place the seasoned nuts onto a drying rack and dehydrate for 24-36 hours at 115 degrees
6. In an oven, place the nuts on a non-stick sheet and bake at 115 degrees for 24 hours; you may need to turn the nuts periodically to ensure consistent drying

Once the nuts are thoroughly dry and crunchy, they are ready to consume. I will warn you ahead of time. These guys are super tasty and addicting. Make sure you have some self-control before making these. Otherwise, you may end up eating 2 cups of nuts on your own, in one sitting.

Nutty Friday, RAW Food, Recipes by OrganicClimber
cashew, cashews, lemon, nuts, pepper, RAW, seasoned, seasoning
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RAW Chocolate Covered Cashews

Ever since discovering the RAW Peanut Butter Cup Smoothie, I have been somewhat addicted to this wonderful substance known as cacao. But, I will say this. As with any food, moderation is key. I have recently cut back my cacao intake after hearing of some negative side effects of the tasty powder. However, I’m not totally convinced that the positive benefits don’t outweigh the negative.

This recipe is really simple and only requires three ingredients. It takes almost no time to make, other than the time to dehydrate.

The Recipe

• 1 Cup of Cashews
• 1/2 TBSP of Agave*
• 1 TBSP of Cacao Power

*In the batch I made I actually used 1 TBSP of agave, but felt like it was too much.

So, start by placing one cup of nuts in a mixing bowl, then pour in the agave and mix thoroughly. Once the nuts are well coated with agave (add more agave if needed) pour in the cacao powder and mix until well coated. Next, place them on a dehydrator sheet and dehydrate for 24 hours. After 12 hours remove the nuts from the sheet and place on the mesh tray.

Alternatively you could use your oven set at a low temperature as well. Since the nuts are not roasting it is okay if you use a lower temperature, just make sure you keep it under 116 degrees in order for it to remain raw. This tasty little snack will provide you with healthy fats, carbohydrates, antioxidants, and protein. This is also a good “energy” snack because of the carbs from the agave and stimulant like properties in the cacao (called theobromine). But I would avoid consuming too many of them before physical activity because nuts are generally harder to digest than raw fruits and veggies.

Nutty Friday, RAW Food, Recipes by OrganicClimber
agave, cacao, cashew, energy, nuts, RAW, snack
2 comments

Black pepper medley, chipotle, and cayenne pepper seasoned cashews.

The other day while picking up some fruit at Kroger I ran across some seasoned cashews under the name brand Yumnuts. They were seasoned in black pepper and other spicy spices, so I decided to attempt my own raw version. They are very simple to make, all you need is your choice of raw nuts, olive oil, and spices.

I chose cashews, and for the spices I went with a black pepper medley, chipotle, and cayenne pepper. To season the nuts, place about 2.5 cups into a mixing bowl and pour about 1/2 TBSP of olive oil over them and mix well. Once they are coated with olive oil season generously. You can consume immediately, but I opted to throw mine in the dehydrator overnight to let the olive oil dry. I imagine they would air dry just as well.

Enjoy your homemade yumuts!

Nutty Friday, RAW Food, Recipes by OrganicClimber
almonds, cashews, nuts, seasoned, yumnuts
3 comments

Raw cacao bean - http://www.rawcacao.com/

This is another one of my accidental creations that came out pretty good. I’ve also been on a chocolate kick lately as well. I may start using cacao even more now that I found out it contains theobromine, which is an alkaloid that has compounds similar to caffeine. It is known for releasing a serotonin that produces a euphoric sense of well being. I found this about after a friend of mine made the raw peanut butter cup smoothie and told me the caffeine in the cacao gave him a buzz. I knew cacao didn’t have caffeine, so I had to find out what it was giving him the euphoric feeling.

Cacao also stimulates the heart more than the nervous system as with caffeine. This could be part of why my raw shot bloks were successful, but I’m not scientist. I may find myself consuming even more cacao now in the mornings so that I’m less tempted to stop at Starbucks and pick up a coffee. Anyway, enough of my healthy hippie rants about super foods….

The Recipe

• 1/2 avocado
• 1 huge hand-full of spinach
• 1 banana
• 2 TBSP of raw honey or agave nectar
• 2 TBSP of cacao powder
• 1 cup of rice milk (or your choice of nut milk)

Directions: Blend and enjoy

If you have never used cacao before and are interested in purchasing some there are a number of places you can buy it online. The best place I have found is Lucky Vitamin. It had to be back ordered, but for the price I paid, it was well worth it. Navitas Naturals is the brand I have found I like the best, and I have tried about three different brands.

RAW Food, Recipes, Smoothie Tuesday by OrganicClimber
avocado, cacao, caffeine, chocolate, navitas naturals, RAW, serotonin, theobromine
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Raw Shot Bloks before going through the dehydrator. The battery went dead on my camera before I could snap the finished shot.

Over the past month or so, I have heard numerous runners talk about or tweet about Cliff Shot Bloks. After finding out what the were, I decided I could make my own raw homemade version of them. What I developed was based on the energy gels and drinks I have seen in Brendan Brazier’s Thrive Diet, but I went the extra mile with mine and added chocolate flavoring!

What I developed was a calorie rich droplets that provide carbs, protein and electrolytes. Each droplet contains: dates, agave nectar, cacao powder (for a yummy chocolate flavor), chia seeds (for a longer release of energy and protein), lemon and lime juice, and ground sunflower seeds for their anti-inflammatory effects. The dates are a good source of carbohydrates and are also high in calories. The chia seeds help slow down the break-down of glucose, thus giving you longer lasting energy, the lemon and lime juice assist in replenishing electrolytes. The sunflower seeds were sort of added on accident because I didn’t have pumpkin seeds, but I’m thinking the sunflower seeds were the better option because they are high in protein and have anti-inflammatory properties.

I used the shot bloks the next morning on my 10 mile run. I didn’t cary any energy gels, just the bloks and a raw energy drink I made. I felt pretty charged the entire run, I think things really started kicking in around mile five; at this point I had consumed around five of the ten bloks I carried with me. I brought 10 bloks with me, but probably only consumed eight of those ten because I dropped the bag I was carrying them in at some point.

The only draw back I found was that the bloks mash together fairly easily. I had placed them in the back pocket of my bike jersey that I wore for the run and ended up sitting back on them on the drive to the trail, what I ended up with was shot mush instead of bloks,  but they were still fairly easy to consume. I would suggest dehydrating the blocks for longer so they harden up a bit more than they did for me, but also proper storage will help keep your blocks in tact.

These tasty little treats would be great for taking on long runs and even climbing trips. I plan on making another batch on my next trip to the crag coming up here in March. The cost to make these is pretty low too. Eight dates will run about about $1.67, the other items are bulk items (aside from the lemon and lime) so the cost there is very minimal. My guess would be that 24 bloks will cost you around $2.75.

The Recipe

• 8 pitted dates
• 1/8 cup of agave nectar
• 1 TBSP of cacao powder
• 1/2 TBSP of chia seeds
• 1/8 cup of sunflower seeds ground into powder (using coffee grinder)
• juice of 1/2 a lemon
• juice of 1/2 a lime

Directions: Place all the ingredients into a food processor and pulse until thoroughly mixed, scrapping the sides of the walls periodically. When finished you should have a fairly thick consistency, if not, add a couple of more dates. Once you have a thick consistency, using a spoon, dish out small dollops of the mixture onto a non-stick dehydrator sheet, you should be able to get about 24 shot blok size drops. Once you have the dollops on the sheet, wet your fingers and shape into squares as best you can.

After you have shaped your bloks, place in the dehydrator at around 110 degrees for 12-20 hours. I pulled mine out at around 12 for my morning run, they probably could have been left in a lot longer. These should keep well for several days, but I recommend using them as soon as possible, so if you are not going to use all of them in a few days I would cut the recipe in half.

Climbing, Cross Training, Health & Fitness, RAW Food, Recipes by OrganicClimber
Cliff, Climbing, electrolytes, enrgy, gel, homemade, homemade cliff shot bloks, RAW, Running, Shot Bloks
4 comments

Rainbow chard, green, nectarine, mango banana smoothie. What a name for a smoothie eh?  I made this delicious bad boy after an impromptu trip to Whole Foods after exchangeable my shoes at Luke’s Locker. I needed some agave nectar and it just so happened, there was a Whole Foods right down the road. I ended up buying way more stuff than I intended to buy. Really the only thing I needed was the agave, but walked out with a canvas bag full of other stuff including a couple mangoes and some rainbow chard. I have used rainbow chard in past smoothies – it’s one of my favorite greens.

The amazing Titan peeler!

I have a feeling I am going to start eating a lot more mangoes since my roommate purchased the Titan peeler. This “As Seen on TV” kitchen utensil is seriously quite amazing! It only takes me seconds to peel one mango as opposed to minutes with a standard potato peeler. This will make dehydrating mangoes way easier too.

Anyway, without further or do, here is the Rainbow Green Monster Smoothie. I just renamed it on the spot; sounds much better huh?

The Recipe

• I ripe mango
• 1 ripe nectarine
• 1 ripe banana
• 2-4 TBSP of agave nectar
• 6 cubes of ice
• 3/4 – 1 cup of almond milk
• 1 giant rainbow chard leaf

Directions: blend that stuff up

RAW Food, Recipes, Smoothie Tuesday by OrganicClimber
agave nectar, banana, green, mango, nectarine, rainbow chard, smoothie, titan peeler, whole foods
1 comment

RAW Avocado Sandwich with flax seed crackers.

One of my favorite raw foods is avocados, these creamy fruits are great as a snack with a bit of sea salt, in a salad, on a raw taco or a raw sandwich in this case. The thick creamy texture of this amazing fruit makes them ideal for sandwiches in my opinion.  Avocados are a staple food in my raw diet, along with nuts, they are one of my main sources of healthy fats. They are also a great source of calories. One medium sized avocado packs in 276 calories. I almost always have whole avocado in my salad every day.

Making this raw avocado sandwich is simple, and requires very little time to make. Although, not truly raw, for this recipe I use Ezekiel sprouted grain buns. Made from organically grown grains, these buns are cooked at low temperatures (higher than required to preserve enzymes) and are healthier than any of your typical store bough buns.

The Recipe

• 1 Ezekiel sprouted grain bun
• 1 roma tomato, cut into slices length wise
• 1 small avocado, cut into slices
• 1 slice of onion
• stone ground mustard

The Directions

Pile all the above ingredients onto your Ezekiel bun and spread the desired amount of stone ground mustard on the bun. Eat, and enjoy. If you want to make this meal 100% raw you can substitute the Ezekiel bread for a romaine lettuce leaf or any number of raw bread recipes.

As a side I had some of the flax seed crackers I made the other day. It was a nice filling meal.

Detail shot of avocado sandwich.

RAW Food, Recipes by OrganicClimber
avocado, ezekiel, flax crackers, raw avocado sandwich, roma tomato, spinach, sprouted grain bread, stone ground mustard
6 comments

Raw onion and garlic flax seed crackers.

The other day I unexpectedly steeped into a raw food making frenzy. I think feeling run down, as if sickness was creeping up on me inspired me to create some raw foods. In addition to creating some of my raw granola, aka, raw buckwheat treats, I made some really simple flax seed crackers, which are perhaps the best I have made so far. This recipe is also simpler, in that it does not require soaking the seeds. It was purely accident that I did not soak the seeds. Normally I would, but it had been so long since I have made flax crackers I completely forgot about this step, but they still came out amazing.

The Recipe

• 1 cup of golden flax seeds
• 1 cup of brown flax seeds
• 2 TBSP onion granules
• generous amount of garlic salt
• 1/2 cup of Namu Shoyu
• 3/4 cups of water

Directions

1. Combine all ingredients into a food processor and pulse until well mixed
2. Spread the mixture onto a teflex dehydrator sheet, should but enough for one full sheet in a nine tray Excalibur dehydrator.
3. Score the mixture into desired shapes using a pizza roller or sharp knife
4. Dehydrate crackers at 95-100 degrees for about 8-10 hours.
5. Flip the crackers over and dehydrate for another 8-10 hours, until crisp.

These crackers have a slightly salty/spicy flavor without too much hint of garlic or onion. If you like a stronger garlic or onion taste, simply add more garlic salt or onion granules.

These are great just as a side item to a meal, or served as a snack with almond butter. They would also go great with a raw cheese spread or pizza sauce. Best part is, these will stay practically stay fresh forever.

RAW Food, Recipes by OrganicClimber
dehydrated, dehydrator, flax crackers, flax seed, garlic, onion, RAW Food, raw granola, raw snack
2 comments

Electric Green Spinach Smoothie

This is one of my all-time favorite smoothie recipes. It was one that I made countless times when I first started eating raw foods. This simple green smoothie is brightly colored and is sweet and tasty to boot. All you need is spinach, bananas and water. It’s that simple! Alternatively you can use almond or hemp seed milk to add to the flavor and provide additional nutrients.

The Recipe

• 2 hand fulls of spinach
• 2 bananas
• 6 ice cubes (or omit if your bananas are frozen)
• 1 cup of water or your favorite “milk”
• 2 TBSP of hemp seed protein (totally optional)

Directions: Throw it all in a blender and WHIRRRRR

If you want to spice it up even more use a chocolate greens powder such as Amazing Grass, or just use cacao powder. One of my favorite things about this drink is how much it freaks people out when they say it. Their reaction is always, “eww, your going to drink that”. But I promise, what looks like it flowed right out of a nuclear waste dump is one of the most delicious smoothies you will ever taste.

Electric Green Spinach Smoothie

RAW Food, Recipes, Smoothie Tuesday, Uncategorized by OrganicClimber
almond milk, banana, cacao, green, hemp seed, protein, RAW, smoothie, spinach
1 comment

Raw Chocolate Pudding

After a run last week I found I only had a half bag of mixed berries left in the freezer and needed them for my breakfast in the morning, so I decided to get creative with my recovery smoothie for that day. What I came up with was really more of a delicious chocolate pudding, and let me tell you, it puts Jello brand chocolate pudding to shame! The ingredients really sound like an odd combination, and they are! But, I really surprised myself with this recipe, I honestly didn’t think it would taste that great, the results are amazing though.

The Recipe

• 2 bananas
• 1 avocado
• 2 tbsp of honey
• 4 tbs of cacao powder
• 2 tbsp of raw tahini
• 4 tbsp of hemp seed protein
• 1.5 cups of almond milk

Combine all ingredients in a Vita-Mix blender and process until you have a nice thick, creamy consistency. The result should be a nice thick pudding like mixture that can be eaten as a pudding or drank like a smoothie. I’m not much for sitting around eating lots of pudding, so I just treat it like a nice thick smoothie and chug away.

Also, remember if you are interested in purchasing a Vita-Mix you can get free shipping by going through the links on my site.

RAW Food, Recipes, Smoothie Tuesday by OrganicClimber
cacao, chocolate, pudding, RAW, recovery, smoothie
3 comments