Nutty Baked Vegetables
For a tasty side or snack, try baking assorted veggie slices coated with nut flour—so yummy! For this recipe, I used zucchini, shitake mushrooms, purple sweet potato and yacón—a delightful vegetable I just discovered at Nash’s Organic Produce.
The yacón (Smallanthus sonchifolius) is a perennial traditionally grown in South America for its crisp, sweet-tasting tuberous roots. Yacón can be eaten raw or cooked and is noted for its high fiber and low calorie content. With a texture very similar to jicama, its distinctive flavor is a satisfyingly sweet cross between celery and Granny Smith apples. Another name for the yacón is Peruvian ground apple.
INGREDIENTS
1 large zucchini, peeled
1 yacón, peeled
1 sweet potato, peeled
1 cup raw nut flour – I made my own with raw, hulled hemp hearts
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon green onion powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
PREPARATION
To make raw nut flour: process nuts a half a cup at a time in a blender or food processor until turned into a powder. Do not over process or you will have nut butter. If you want an finer flour, sift after processing. Note: you can make nut flour from any raw nut such cashews or skinned almonds.
Preheat oven to 450F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Lay the mushrooms upside down and cut off stem with a small, sharp knife, cutting just below the mushroom cap so you remove the whole stem. Mushrooms are very porous, so if they are exposed to too much water, they will quickly absorb the water and become soggy so it’s best to clean them without water. To do this, simply wipe the caps well with a barely damp paper towel. If the underside of the mushroom cap is dirty, carefully scrape around it with a small knife or toothpick to remove any pieces of dirt.
Evenly slice remaining vegetables—zucchini, yacón and sweet potato—into 1/4-inch rings.
In a small bowl, whisk the eggs. In a separate bowl, mix cashew flour with salt, onion and garlic powder. Dip vegetable slices in egg one at a time, letting any excess egg drip off, and then coat the egg-covered vegetables in flour mixture and place in a single layer on the baking sheet.
Bake on each side for about 6-8 minutes, until each side is golden brown. The sweet potatoes may need an extra few minutes, check for doneness by piercing with a fork.
Serve with a dollop of cashew sour cream.
Note: instead of discarding leftover egg and flour after you’ve coated all the vegetables, combine and make scrambled eggs.
If you make this recipe, snap a pic of your dish and hashtag it #kellylenihancooks. I'd love to see your creations on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter!
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