At long last: Pulp Chips!

Sometimes, there's just nothing like a good crispy chip! As a life-long carb addict, after switching to the GAPS diet, I found myself sorely missing that crispy texture I'd grown to love by way of crackers, cereal (LOTS of cereal), toast, etc. I needed something to satisfy that crunch without over doing it on the good stuff like almonds and other nuts and seeds.

Fortunately, with GAPS, especially the intro, we started doing more juicing, which left us with an abundance of a food product that we didn't quite know what to do with, but also didn't want going to waste. I just couldn't justify disposing all that pulp, so I started perusing the interwebs for ideas on how to use it. There were some interesting recipes, many of which I still need to try, but one in particular stood out as it seemed to be rather GAPS friendly: the Detoxinista's Italian Meat(less) balls. With a couple modifications for GAPS, these veggie balls worked quite well. The hubby and I used them on our 50(+) mile bike-ride as a take-along snack. Without a good sauce though, for us at least, the veggie balls seemed to be a little dry and flat tasting. We both really liked the concept though, which got me thinking: what if we just flattened these out and make them into chips?

I'd seen enough recipes online for juice pulp chips, and since we already had a pretty tasty recipe that just seemed to be missing that little extra something, we went for it! I adjusted some of the quantities to make it work better on the flat baking sheet, and after some trial and error with bake-time, ended up with a dang tasty chip recipe! This has become another one of our go-tos. Since we're juicing on a daily basis, we rarely have a shortage of pulp, so the chips are on a pretty heavy rotation throughout the week. Besides the fact that they are a great snack, the pulp seems less likely to go bad when it's all crisped up. One day I will give this a try in a food dehydrator for a more "raw" version and do more of a side-by-side comparison. Now I just need to get the dehydrator!

As for serving, they are of course great on their own, but they go particularly well with guacamole (especially our go-to, extra garlicky, extra oniony guac), cheese, dip, nut butter, just about anything! And the pulp does not need to be strictly vegetable base, as ours consistently has some type of fruit in it, and still works well with the more savory seasoning. With that, I'm hoping to try making a more pumpkin spice-like recipe soon, so stay tuned for those results!

Pro tip: start with the egg. I use an immersion blender with a whisk attachment.

Once the eggs are scrambled, everything else gets added, in no particular order.

Flatten everything out on the pan. I find parchment paper is almost critical for non-stick results.

After a good night in the oven, break apart and enjoy!

The Recipe (makes two baking sheets):

• 5 Cups Juice Pulp (very rough measurement)
• 3 eggs
• 2 tsp Onion powder
• 2 tsp Garlic powder
• 2 tsp Oregano (dried)
• 2 tsp Basil (dried)
• 1 tsp Salt
• 1 Tbs Parmesan Cheese
• 1 oz Olive Oil

The Process:

• In a large bowl, mix eggs until well blended.
• Add pulp, seasoning (onion powder, garlic powder, oregano, basil, salt), cheese and olive oil. 
• Mix ingredients by hand start dividing between the two prepared baking sheet (I use parchment paper and it works fabulously!).
• Flatten the mixture out so that it fills the full baking sheet.
• Place in the over on a low temperature setting (for my oven, 200 degrees is ideal) and let sit for at least 8 hours (overnight or during the day while at work). 

As the pulp mixture dries it will detach from the parchment paper making it easy to break into bite-size pieces. 

Another juice pulp recipe: Bread

The homestead has had a bit of a juice pulp surplus as of late, mainly because I've been holding off on the chip making to look for more ways of putting the pulp to good use. As I've scoured the net for more juice pulp recipes, I've come across quite a few bread recipes, and so was curious to give it a try myself. I found this recipe from the Milk From The Morning Cake blog. All in all it was a pretty painless process, and was ready to enjoy in about an hour. Since I've been avoiding sugar, I left out the honey/sweetener, and did not find it to be lacking in the slightest. I love the spice flavor with the cinnamon and nutmeg, and in many ways it reminds me of my mom's zucchini bread. Quite delicious, it may be one of those recipes we need to add into the regular rotation. The biggest takeaway for me though, was the prep tip of lining the bread pan with parchment paper. A simple thing I know, but made all the difference in the world when it came to removal. I had tried using various types of fat to grease the pan in the past like butter, coconut oil, olive oil, but the parchment paper definitely wins out.

One thing I'll be interested in trying in the future is a more savory version of the bread, something more akin to the pulp chip recipe I love so much. Perhaps mingling it with the wonderful savory waffle recipe. I could imagine this turning out to be some pretty awesome sandwich bread, or perhaps it would work best as a dipping bread (I love olive oil!)! Hmmm....sounds like a new recipe experiment!

I again found that mixing the eggs first and adding everything else to them worked VERY well!

Getting my hands dirty.

Success!

A little quick cinnamon butter and we're all good.

The Recipe

• 8oz juice pulp
• 6oz ground almonds (or ground cashews, hazels or sunflower seeds or coconut flour, I happened to use almonds)
• 2oz melted butter
• 2-4tsp honey (or maple syrup for non SCD and low fructose diets, can also be omitted if avoiding sugar all together)
• 4 large free range eggs
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• Juice of half a lime or a third of a lemon (I used a tablespoon of lemon juice)
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• Half tsp fresh grated nutmeg (I used dried, powdered)
• 3 tsp cider vinegar
• small handful of chopped walnuts, pecans or raisins (This is entirely optional, though I found the walnuts to be a wonderful addition. Leave out raisins for low fructose diets)

The Process

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees (F). Line a 1lb loaf tin with parchment paper, letting it hang well over the edges.
2. In a mixing bowl, stir together carrot pulp, ground almonds, melted butter, spices, bicarb and eggs.
3. In a small bowl or cup stir together, lime juice, vinegar and honey. Pour over the rest of the ingredients (adding the option extras if wished) and stir till well mixed in. Pile into the tin and smooth the top.
4. Bake for 50 - 70 minutes (mine was done in about an hour), until the top is golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool in the tin for about 10 minutes and then gently loosen with a knife and lift out using the paper strips. Leave paper attached until completely cool and then remove carefully so as not to detach the crust. Slice and toast or keep in an airtight container for up to three days. Otherwise, slice and open freeze, storing in an airtight container in the freezer for up to three weeks.