Fruit Flies!

I know I need to find the source of my fruit flies - it may just be from a day of apple cores and clementine skins, but in the mean time, I have found a great natural solution to getting rid of them. I don't want to start a conversation about whether this is vegan or not because ultimately I am killing animals, but I need to get these fruit flies out of my house.

I would post a picture of the after, but it is really not pretty. If you have some fruit flies in the house and need to get rid of them - here is my easy solution:

Step 1: Take a small jar and fill it with about 1 inch of apple cider vinegar. It does not need to be raw, unpasteurized, etc but that is what I had on hand because I use Braggs ACV for recipes.

Step 2: Add a drop or 2 of glycerin. A lot of people do not keep glycerin on hand, but it is one of the things I always have around for making my own beauty products. If you do not have any, any liquid soap will work too.

Step 3: Set the jar closest to the area of most infestation overnight

Step 4: The next morning dispose of the bodies and start over. I think fruit flies life span is about 10 days, so if you get them at the start of infestation, and get them before they can lay too many eggs, then you should be rid of them within a week or so.

I should also say - the biggest pre-step here is to make sure you remove the source of the infestation - like rotten fruit.

Kale Chips (Raw, Vegan, Gluten-Free)

1 large bunch of kale

1/2 recipe of Goddess Dressing

Directions:

1. Wash and cut large veins from kale
2. Place kale in a large mixing bowl
3. Pour goddess dressing over kale and massage kale with your hands to coat the kale
4. Let sit in bowl for about 5 minutes
5. Place kale pieces flat onto two Teflex sheets, on top of a mesh dehydrator screen, and dehydrate for 8 hours @ 110 degrees
6. Rotate kale pieces after about 4 hours to get uniform crispiness in all your kale chips
7. If they make it out of the dehydrator and last longer than they did at my house, you can store in an airtight container

Goddess Dressing (Raw, Vegan, Gluten-Free)

I love Annie's Goddess dressing, or should say, loved. When we went gluten-free that was one recipe I had a very hard time replacing and still have not perfected it, but the below recipe comes pretty close and definitely hits the spot.

Ingredients:

¾ cup sesame seeds

¼ cup Braggs liquid aminos

½ cup apple cider vinegar

½ cup water for dip consistency (more for dressing consistency)

2 scallions

1 clove garlic, deveined

juice of 1 large lemon

¼ tsp sea salt

¼ cup fresh parsley

Directions:

Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth to get a thick consistency.

A note on sesame seeds - I use raw unhulled tan sesame seeds - these are powerhouses of nutrition and contain more nutrients than their hulled counterparts.

There is often concern that vegans do not get a sufficient amount of zinc in their diet. Include sesame seeds or tahini in your diet often and reap the benefit of plenty of zinc with one tablespoon supplying 1.17 mg.

Unhulled (sometimes called Natural) sesame seeds are high in calcium. One tablespoon provides 87.8 mg while the hulled variety offers only 10.5 mg for that same tablespoon. Comparing sesame seeds to milk turned up some surprising figures in the calcium count. One cup of natural sesame seeds had 1404.0 mg of calcium, while one cup of non-fat milk provided 316.3 mg. and one cup of whole milk contained 291 mg of calcium. Both natural and hulled sesame seeds contain healthy amounts of the B vitamins riboflavin, thiamine, and niacin. With natural seeds scoring 8.7 mcg of folic acid for 1 tablespoon and plenty of vitamin B6, you can count on sesame seeds for excellent nourishment.

Mineral values of the sesame seed:

One tablespoon of hulled seeds contains .62 mg of iron, 27.73 mg of magnesium, 32.53 mg potassium, and .82 mg of zinc. Figures for the natural, unhulled, are slightly higher.

Sesame seeds also contain healthy amounts of phosphorous.

If you're lacking iron, turn to the sesame seed. Its iron content is equal to that of liver.

(Source: nutritiondata.com)

Strawberry Blueberry Cobbler (Raw, Vegan, Gluten-Free)

I made this for a workshop this past Saturday, and while technically, it should have served about 14 - 16 people, 6 of us devoured it. The workshop was a mix of people including vegetarians and omnis - I plan to make this again for an upcoming omni event.

Ingredients:

Crust:

2 cups pumpkin seeds

2 cups pecans

1 1/2 tsp sea salt

1 vanilla bean

1/2 cup olive oil

1 cup pitted dates

Pudding Center:

2 cups blueberries

1 cup pitted dates

1/2 cup water

Fruit topping:

3 cups strawberries, sliced

Directions

1. To make the crust, place seeds, nuts, salt and vanilla bean in food processor fitted with an "S" Blade until the mixture becomes crumby.
2. Add olive oil and process again until the mix becomes dough like
3. Add dates slowly through top while processing
4. Cover the bottom of a 9"x13" pan allowing some of the dough to come up about 1/4" on the sides
5. To make the pudding center, blend berries, dates and enough water to make a thick syrupy mix. The pectin in the berries will make this gel like after it sets
6. Pour the blueberry pudding on top of the crust and spread evenly
7. Evenly distribute the strawberries on top of the pudding