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| Sunflower Seed Milk and Flour |
Back to the kitchen! I'm cutting down of our dairy intake, partly for personal health reasons and partly for environmental reasons, which got me into trying various nut milks to make our breakfast porridge. Interestingly, in blind taste tests (because I didn't tell him!) Dave actually preferred non-dairy milks and my favourite was almond, but I wasn't so keen on the price. Having seen a few bloggers extolling the pros of homemade nut and seed milks, I decided to give it a go. NestAndGlow.com is a particularly good resource and I eventually settled on their Sunflower Seed Milk as being the best suited to us.
Milk Ingredients
140g sunflower seeds
Water for soaking
4-5 dates (optional)
700ml water
I put the sunflower seeds into a bowl with enough water to well cover them and leave them to soak all day (or overnight). I then drain the seeds, discarding the soaking water.
I put the soaked seeds into a high sided saucepan together with 700ml of fresh water and a few dates for sweetness. The dates are optional, but we both have a sweet tooth here! I use my handheld blender to liquidise the seeds and dates which usually takes a couple of minutes. Of course, if you have a food processor you could use this instead.
When all ingredients are blended I hang a jelly bag over a largish bowl and pour the seed-water mixture through it, squeezing at the end to make sure as little liquid as possible is retained with the seed pulp. This is pretty good exercise for hand strength!
The liquid is the finished milk which I decant into a fridge jug ready for the morning's porridge. It does separate as it stands, but a quick stir-up with a long spoon brings it back together again.
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| Oat And Date Cookies |
160g chopped dates
Hot water
1 ripe-ish banana
2 tbsp peanut butter
70g oats
175g sunflower seed pulp
In a great instance of Waste Not Want Not synchronicity it turns out that the leftover sunflower seed pulp from milk-making is a perfect flour substitute in Oat And Date Cookies. Any excuse for cookie baking!
I start to make these by soaking 160g of chopped dates in hot water for 5-10 minutes to soften them. I also set the oven to preheat to 180c although I need to look into whether these cookies would also bake in the slow cooker as I think this would be more economical and energy efficient.
I mash the banana into a large mixing bowl and mix in the peanut butter. I then drain the dates discarding the water and stirring the fruit into the banana mix.
I add the oats and seed pulp and mix everything well together with a wooden spoon. Once there is a sort of dough I use my hands to form it into small balls, lightly flatten them nd place them onto a baking tray. This size batch makes 16-18 cookies. I have found if I flatten them and then place them on a baking tray, they bake without sticking so the tray doesn't need additional greasing or flouring. If I press the cookies onto the tray to flatten them, they do stick!
I bake the cookies on a high oven shelf at 180c for about 15 minutes or until they start to brown on top. I remove the tray from the oven and let them stand for about 5 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool.
Delicious with an afternoon cuppa or as an on-the-go snack!
Save energy by baking these cookies for 1.5 hours in a slow cooker instead of using the oven. I need to stack a batch into a couple of layers, but they don't fall apart.
ReplyDeleteAfter a few weeks of using sunflower seed milk for my porridge and cutting down sugar elsewhere - in tea mostly - I have stopped noticing a need for extra sweetness so no longer add dates to my seed milk. It now keeps its creamy colour better!
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