The chronicles of adding raw food to my diet

On this blog, I'll post about the transition to a more raw food based diet. Check back often for posts on raw foods that I'm eating!

Sunday, January 16, 2011

gRAWnola!

My friend and colleague Rob Costello posted this recipe on his youtube channel, so I decided to try it out. It's a gluten free, sugar free and delicious gRAWnola made from nuts, berries (goji, mulberries and golden berries), spices and buckwheat groats.
Buckwheat is a nutritional powerhouse, packed with all of the essential amino acids, rich in iron, zinc and selenium, and high in antioxidants. The berries in the gRAWnola are packed with antioxidants and vitamins. The nuts are packed with protein and healthy fats. The mix is called gRAWnola because it is dehydrated at 105 degrees in order to preserve the digestive enzymes and to keep the components raw.

The first step to making gRAWnola is the soak step, an overnight soak in water in order to remove the enzyme inhibitors found in nuts, seeds and grains; the berries are soaked as well to rehydrate them.
Soaking the buckwheat:
Soaking the nuts (hazelnuts, almonds and cashews):
Soaking the berries (goji berries, mulberries and golden berries):
After an overnight soak, all of the components are drained and rinsed well. The buckwheat gets very gooey and needs to be rinsed a number of times. Here are the berries and the buckwheat after the soak and the rinse:
After rinsing the nuts, they need to go through a food processor with the slicing blade (alternatively you can slice by hand):
After slicing the nuts, they get added to the berries and the buckwheat and the spices are added: cinnamon, freshly grated nutmeg, sea salt and agave syrup to sweeten. The nutmeg gets grated on a microplane and is ultra fragrant and rich in flavor:

Once the ingredients are all mixed together they are spread out on the dehydrator trays and go into the dehydrator for 12 hours:
After 12 hrs, a bit of agave is drizzled over the ingredients and they are left to dehydrate for 12 more hours. The end product is a slightly sticky, definitely crunchy gRAWnola that is sweet from the agave, mulberries and goji berries and tangy from the cinnamon and golden berries. I ate it as cereal with homemade almond milk and it was to die for. Absolutely delicious!!!

Thanks Rob for posting the original recipe :)
Enjoy. Try something raw today!