Showing posts with label sunflower seeds. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sunflower seeds. Show all posts

Friday, June 5, 2009

Sunflower Chickpea Spread

With beginning to make bread from scratch, I’ve been going through bread a lot quicker than usual, and bean spreads are a great way to make a nutritious meal of it and also let the flavour of the bread shine (well, as long as the flavour of the spread is mild enough!). More bean spreads can be expected in the future, that is for sure. This one is a variation on hummus, and makes a nice summery spread. In this picture I’ve made it the base of a delicious veggie-full open-faced sandwich, on my homemade bread along with lettuce from my garden, local organic cucumber, home-grown bean sprouts, and some chives, also from my garden. This spread also makes a very addictive tortilla chip dip!


Sunflower Chickpea Spread

½ cup raw sunflower seeds
½ cup water (or more)
1 tablespoon olive oil (or more)
1 ½ cups cooked chickpeas (or 1 can)
5 oil-packed sundried tomatoes, sliced
2 cloves garlic, sliced
juice of 1 lemon
1 handful fresh sage (or other fresh herb – rosemary or thyme would probably work, too)
1 handful fresh parsley
3/4 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon red pepper flakes

Toast the sunflower seeds until fragrant. Grind them in a food processor until as fine as possible. Then add the water, oil and chickpeas, and blend, adding more water or oil (if needed) to get a good spread-able consistency. Then add all the other ingredients and blend until very smooth. Done!

Monday, June 1, 2009

Seedy White Chocolate Clusters

I made these to give away to some fellow vegan bloggers, the good people behind Veganachronism and the Year of the Vegan, when we went out for lunch one day. They were well-received.

These little guys may not look like much, but they are certainly tasty, and my favourite way to use vegan white chocolate chips. They make a good snack cookie thing, what with all those seeds in there.


Seedy White Chocolate Clusters

1 ¼ cup combination of pumpkin seeds and sesame seeds
¼ cup raisins
1/3 cup vegan white chocolate chips
¼ teaspoon salt
¾ cup spelt flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
3 tablespoons maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 tablespoons canola oil
2 or more tablespoons almond milk or water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Toast the seeds together in a dry skillet until fragrant (not very long). Set aside to cool. In a large bowl, stir together raisins, chocolate chips, salt, flour, and baking powder until well-combined. In a small bowl, combine maple syrup, vanilla, oil and milk or water. Once the seeds are cooled, add them to the dry ingredients, mix, and then add the wet ingredients. If the mixture isn’t coming together easily, add a bit more milk or water to help it out. Spray a cookie sheet or line with parchment, and scoop out 1-2 tablespoons of the mixture, forming it into a ball with your hands, and place it on the cookies sheet. Repeat with the rest of the mixture. This is a tad messy - you’ll probably need to rinse your hands a few times in the process. Bake for approximately 12 minutes, until they start to colour a little bit. Makes 14-18 clusters.