Vegan MoFo Day 13 : Papaya Bread

Last year during MoFo, I wrote about the raw food book ("No-Cook" Book by John Tobe, 1969) which I inherited from my grandmother. I'll be trying more recipes from it this month.

Tobe features a number of breads made by mixing flour with a fruit or vegetable puree and then allowing it to dry in the sun. He clearly wasn't living in Nashville in November. "In the sun" = break out the dehydrator.

As I saw a nice papaya the other day, I decided to start with his papaya bread (veganized to replace the honey):

1 1/2 c whole wheat flour
1 1/2 c rye flour
flesh of one papaya, put through the food processor
1 T agave

Mix together the flours. Add the agave and (slowly) enough papaya to make a workable dough. I had a pretty big papaya, and this took about 3/4 of it. Roll out the dough on a floured board and cut it into squares or whatever shape. Place on dehydrator trays, and dehydrate until dry. This recipe filled two trays in my Excalibur, and took about 24 hours to become completely dry. I made mine cookie thickness, and they would dry faster if you rolled them thinner. I started them at about 145 F, and turned down the temp to 125 F after a couple of hours. You could easily do this at a raw-food temperature, but it would take longer.

Results: a nice cracker. At first bite, the mind says "plain, floury cracker" but then the papaya taste starts to come in. I might add a tiny bit of salt and/or other seasoning if making again, and I am curious to try some of Tobe's other dehydrated breads.

Dehydrator Fun

I haven't blogged in forever. I fail. Anyhow.... Susie and I agreed to update our neglected blogs, so here I go:

When my tax refund arrived, I headed right to EverydayDish, my favorite source for amazing cooking equipment. One of my purchases was an Excalibur food dehydrator, which I bought with a mind to use it for some raw food recipes. However, I am discovering that it makes a great incubator for soy yogurt, tempeh, salt rising bread starter, and other fermented projects that need a warm temperature below what the oven can offer.

My mother used to dehydrate lots of apples when I was a kid. (We had a bunch of trees.) Yesterday, I processed two big bags of apples in the dehydrator. Not only are they tasty on their own, but they can be used to make a delightfully unhealthy treat - fried pies. Around here, THE filling for fried pies is based on dried apples. This is my great-aunt's non-recipe:

Take 1 quart of dried apples, add just a little water, and cook in a saucepan till tender. You can add sugar, cinnamon, or whatever else you like. Mash the results until you have a fairly thick paste.

Make a double batch of your favorite pie crust. Take a ball of dough (golf ball size or bigger), and roll out into a flat circle. Cover one side with the apple mixture (leave space around the edges), then fold over and seal with a fork.

To cook: Heat vegetable shortening in a dutch oven - maybe an inch or so of melted fat. Fry the pies until brown on one side, then flip, and fry the other side. The second side goes a lot faster. If this is too terrifying, brush with melted margarine and bake at 400 until they look done.

Enjoy!