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Thursday, October 1, 2009

Fabulous Onion Bread

You may have heard me talk about this one before and anyone who's tried it raves about its awesome deliciousness. Seriously, this recipe is not a lame substitution for bread, but a gourmet variety, worlds above in terms of heartiness and flavor. BUT... and there is a but... it is really finicky and labor intensive to make, which is why I've been putting off posting the recipe. The original inspiration for this came from a raw food vegan cookbook (yes, I own one of those!) and was meant to be entirely dehydrated, taking upwards of 24 hours. I'm not opposed to cooking my food, plus my dehydrator doesn't have the nifty trays you would need to make items like this, or fruit leathers, or other paste-like treats. So I've been experimenting with different methods every time David talks me into dedicating an afternoon and sacrificing my eyeballs to make this. Here's the best I've come up with thus far, but I'm sure there will be updates to this one over time.

Ingredients
4 large sweet onions
1 cup raw sunflower seeds
1 cup flax seeds
1/2 cup organic tamari soya sauce
2/3 cup olive oil

Directions
1) Grind the sunflower seeds in a food processor. Buy pre-ground flax seeds if possible, but if not blend those babies up too!

2) Get read to weep! Peel and roughly chop the onions. Puree them in the food processor then transfer to a fine mesh sieve or cheesecloth. Squish out as much of the liquid as possible. It burns! It burns! Perhaps I need these?

3) Combine the ground seeds with the onion mush and add the tamari and the olive oil. Mix well!

4) Spread the mixture onto a large cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Aim for a thin layer, about 1/4" thick. Bake at 350 for 60 min or until the top is browned. This picture was for a double batch.

5) Allow the bread to cool, then slice into squares and gently transfer to a food dehydrator. Dehydrate on low to medium heat for 6-ish hours.
Now you're ready to enjoy the best sandwich you'll ever have in your life.

3 comments:

  1. My first time posting, but love your experience here!

    What if you don't own a food dehydrator? Will an oven work at 170 degrees F (lowest temp it goes), and if so, for about how long? Am I looking for a specific characteristic in the bread?

    Thanks so much!

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  2. The original recipe I had said to dehyrate the mixture for 24 hours, flipping it half way through. As I mentioend, it was a raw vegan cookbook and so did not involve baking it first.

    I would try one of two things:
    1) bake first. Then cut into squares as I did and place on a rack set in a cookie sheet or directly on your oven rack to allow for air circulation on both sides.

    2) dehydrate on the lowest temperature setting on your oven. When the mixture is solid enough to hold together but still too moist, flip it over to ensure even drying on both sides. I'm thinking at 170 deg this would take 16-20 hours but I have no idea to be honest.

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  3. You can make a simple dehydrator easily by taking 4 brand-new paper or cotton furnace filters and a 22" box fan. Lay out your food on three of the filters, stack them up and put the fourth one on top of the stack. Then just bungee it to the box fan and put it on medium.

    ReplyDelete