Cold Here! And Snacks - Some Thoughts and Recipes (One Sweet, One Savory)

It froze hard here last night. Hard enough that ice persisted even on the salty beach, even in pouring rain, so that walking out without gloves on hands led to hands getting that constricted, bruised, blue feeling that aches even when the warmth returns.

But nonetheless, Phil couldn't resist taking this day to launch the little boat and go see what's to see. And if he'd given me more than a couple hours notice, I might have felt compelled to go too! (As it is, I'm happy to be home and relatively warm).

Another attempt at an eagle photo: this eagle cracked us up as we drove out to launch Phil's boat. It had picked up a dead fish in its talons and was trying to get away from its competition, the crows. It flapped and flew and flapped and flew, but the fish was too big for it to get any kind of liftoff, and it finally landed back on the beach, much closer to the ocean. The crows joined it pretty quickly, but it wasn't really letting them near the actual 'food.'  I wonder what happened when the tide came in...

With winter's approach, the young trees in town have been swaddled in burlap to keep the moose from eating them down.

Yes, snacks. I used to subscribe to the belief system that says that eating between meals is 'bad' and should never be done. And for some people, that's probably true. But for me, things work much better if I do eat regular snacks. Otherwise, either I eat three big meals, which always makes me feel awful, or I'm just hungry all the time between small meals.

I'm going to review 'product' snacks later this week, but as always in my life it seems, home-made is essential. This point was driven home when I tried out a few raw bars while traveling recently - gluten and dairy and soy free is a great start, but the low-to-zero sugar piece is crucial for me right now too.

So, back to 'chia sweet!'

This batch looks dark because it also has a tablespoon of cinnamon in it. Cinnamon thickens and becomes mucilaginous when mixed with water, so it's a great addition to chia-sweet. Of course, it's also good for blood sugar balance, is warming, lowers blood pressure (maybe not such a good thing in my case), tastes delicious, etc, etc!

My recent batches of no-sugar bars with chia-sweet were tending toward the minimal - chia-sweet and shredded coconut with some algae and mint oil, so that the chia sweet was the matrix of the cookie as well as the sweetener. I was spreading them very thin too, because of our lack of dehydrator and odd setup in that regard. But with the heater coming on more of the time now (I dehydrate things in front of it), I felt like I needed something more solidly textured and satisfying.

This is that cup or so of chia-sweet pictured above, plus about half a cup of ground pecans, a pinch of salt and another of cayenne, a teaspoon of ginger and one of allspice and a half teaspoon each of cardamom and cloves. My favorite flavors!

I melted about 1/4 cup coconut oil and stirred that in.

And then it was still 'gloopy,' so I added two teaspoons of nutritional yeast and about a half cup of shredded coconut.

At that point, it became kneadable and spreadable. I spread it on the tray, scored it, gave it 30minutes in the toaster over at the lowest temp with the door open, and then flipped, cut and placed in front of the heater to get done gradually.

(haha, with the tide tables pictured under the tray - we live on the ocean!)

Since I can't just do one thing at a time, I made some raw onion crackers too.  I don't like raw onions at all - I can taste them for days afterwards and they hurt my tummy! But dehydrated or pickled seem to work better. And I recently read that onions are likely preventative of osteoporosis, due to a specific compound that they contain (in addition to being super-high in important antioxidants like quercitin, and sulfur compounds). Since I'm a super-high risk for osteoporosis on several different counts, that drew my attention.

This is super-simple. A quarter of a middle-sized onion, chopped (not fine enough: I should have diced it); a cup of soaked sunflower seeds, ground up, and a cup of flax meal. Mix all together, then add about two tablespoons of coconut aminos, about 3 tablespoons of olive oil. Mix those in very thoroughly, and then add a tiny amount of water and it all  holds together.

I gave this batch the same treatment as the cinnamon bars above, remembering after I'd cut them up to rotate them out so that the pieces that had been in the middle could be on the outside.

They're mostly dry now, in front of the heater, but since it's such a  sporadic drying, I'm giving them a little more. I tried an onion cracker with lunch and it's great! Onions are so incredibly sweet.

And of course the cinnamon ones are great too - no danger of them not being.

Do these bars/crackers sound and look appetizing? I know that not many people have to avoid sugar in this way. And personally, I'm not drawn to dehydrated goods but with months of experimenting, it seems that drying seems to be the best way to hold together and preserve bars that don't utilize dried fruit or syrups.

Have a beautiful day!