healthy laps

Bet you never thought I’d write a post about BLT’s, huh?  Well, in place of bacon, I used my dehydrated eggplant bacon!

Eggplant Bacon

from Everyday Raw by Matthew Kenney

Ingredients:

• 1 large eggplant, thinly sliced
• 1 tablespoon sea salt
• 1/2 dried chipotle chile, soaked at least 2 hours – omitted because I didn’t have any!
• 1/2 cup soaking water from the chipotle peppers – omitted, and added a little water instead
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons nama shoyu
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin
• pinch black pepper
• pinch cayenne

Directions:

Cut the eggplant in half, then slice thinly to make ‘bacon’ strips.

Sprinkle it with the sea salt and allow to sit for 1-2 hours on paper towels.

In the mean time, blend all of the other ingredients in your high speed blender or food processor.

Press our the extra moisture in your eggplant by blotting it with extra paper towels.

Then, submerge the eggplant in the marinade and let sit 30-45 minutes.

Carefully lay out the eggplant strips onto your dehydrator and dehydrate at 115°F until crispy (mine took about 14 hours – I put it on before I went to bed, and it was done mid-morning).

13.5 hours later, my eggplant bacon was crispy and done!

It tasted great!  Definitely not like real bacon, although I probably haven’t had that in at least 10 years!  It was crispy and the flavor was great, so I’m glad I used the marinade!

To make our BLT’s for dinner, I took 2 slices of sprouted grain bread and toasted them, then spread a thin layer of mustard on each.

I layered the toast with green leaf lettuce, yellow tomatoes and eggplant bacon.

After the sandwich was put together, I put it on our grill pan to press it a little bit.

Yummy!  The eggplant bacon was crispy enough that it really did remind me of real bacon, besides the flavor.  But, then again, I used to eat BLT’s because I liked the crunch, so this works just fine for me!

I served our sandwiches with a side of zucchini and kale chips, which I dipped in ketchup!

Yesterday morning, I took my zucchini chips out of the dehydrator after 9.5 hours!  Here is how they turned out:

They were crispy, just like chips!  I liked the flavor better dipped in ketchup, so next time I will use some kind of seasoning before dehydrating.  I’m thinking even italian seasoning would be delicious!

For dessert I made some Super Charge Me cookies from Eat, Drink and Be Vegan.

Super Charge Me Cookies

adapted from Eat, Drink and Be Vegan

makes 12 ‘ice cream scoop’ sized cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 cup quick oats (i used rolled oats)
• 2/3 cup spelt flour (i used whole wheat pastry flour)
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 1/4-1/2 tsp cinnamon (i used 1/2 tsp)
• 1/8 cup unsweetened coconut (i used 1/4 cup)
• 1/4-1/3 cup raisins or other dried fruit ( i used 1/3 cup raisins)
• 3-4 tbsp carob (to be vegan) or chocolate chips (i used 4 tbsp dark chocolate chunks)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/3 cup flax meal
• 1/2 cup pure maple syrup
• 3 tbsp almond butter (i used Futter’s Almond Haze)
• 1.5 tbsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp canola oil (i used coconut oil)

Mix all of the ingredients together, scoop with an ice cream scoop and place on a cookie sheet.

Bake at 350°F for 13 minutes.

I took my cookies out after exactly 13 minutes, and they were perfect.  Enjoy!!

These cookies were great.  It will be my new go-to cookie for awhile now.  They are extremely east to make, and I normally have all of the ingredients in my pantry!

Filed under: Cookbooks, Eating Laps, Recipes | Tagged: cookies, dehydrator, Eating Laps, kale, Recipes, treats |