Spinach Cheese Balls?

[Diana Cda]

I'm having a craving. At the health food store, I used to buy these little spinach cheese balls that were so decadent but so not good for us <g>. Can anyone suggest a method to come up with a raw alternative? I've had some ideas but don't feel that results will be good enough.

Cheers :)

[snowdrop]

do tell about them, what made them wonderful, what did they taste like, crunchy- soft, heavy-airy- what? hoe big were they?
i have never heard of them and can't visualize them... but think i can figure it out with enough info.
or maybe someone here already has?

[JEN]

I love the spinach and cheese in Alissa's calzone. I dont usually put the veggies in it, just the crust with spinach and cheese and its delicious!!

[Elizabeth]

How about Alissa's spinach dip, with spinach, avocado etc., and nutritional yeast added..maybe some kind of nuts?? and made into balls and dehydrated??

[Diana Cda]

do tell about them, what made them wonderful, what did they taste like, crunchy- soft, heavy-airy- what? hoe big were they?
i have never heard of them and can't visualize them... but think i can figure it out with enough info.
or maybe someone here already has?These particular ones were the size and shape of falafel balls and they were soft and chewy. Can't think how else to describe them other than they were really, really good, which is not much help <g>.

Perhaps there's a cheese ball recipe somewhere that I can just add spinach to. I hadn't thought of that. I'll search around for this and see what I can come up with.

Thanks. It helped to figure out something to search for! If I find anything, I'll post back. :)

[Diana Cda]

How about Alissa's spinach dip, with spinach, avocado etc., and nutritional yeast added..maybe some kind of nuts?? and made into balls and dehydrated??I don't have Alissa's book. She doesn't sell through regular channels and I just haven't had all that extra money to buy direct (what with shipping charges and exchange rate, it costs a whopping ±Cdn$50.00 in the end). But thanks.

I'm picking up "Living Cuisine" tonight from a great local store I deal with that handles special orders of specialty books on health/spirituality/new age type stuff. Maybe there'll be something in there that might help.

Thanks. :)

[bowie]

There are distributors in Canada, UK and Australia and all over who sell her book. Where are you located?

[Diana Cda]

How about experiments in making cheese balls of some kind? Has anyone had success with finding a delicious way to make these? I remember the ones covered in green herbs. That used to be really good. I only ever had cheese balls at a couple of work social functions but for the life of me wouldn't know how to convert a regular recipe into a raw one.

At any rate, maybe someone here has run across a recipe for cheese balls. I've searched a couple of forums but haven't found anything. Cheers! :)

[Tirza]

I'm not at home right now, but I am thinking when I do get home I will try the Falafels (made with almonds) for this. I have made them by the recipe and they were fabulous! After coming out of the D they are crispy on the outside almost like they had been deep fried. The almonds do give it a nice fluffy texture which might help to offset any heaviness from the cheese or from the moisture in the spinach....

For this experiment I will leave out the cumin, add some chopped spinach and some strong cheesy stuff. Some of the moistness would have to be left out to accomodate the cheese.

Also I might try little chunks of the dehydrated cheese slices I saw on here.

Another idea is to try to make it taste like spanikopita using a white dehydrated cheese with some extra lemon and salt to simulate feta cheese.

Yum! This is sounding like a MUST DO for me!

[Diana Cda]

Did these work out? I have a couple of falafel recipes. Can't figure out how to change them but I'll try to think of something.

Cheers.

[SchoolOfRAWk]

I would definitely make a dip like Alissa's spinach dip and maybe the cheddar cheese spread...and blend possible with ground sunflower or almonds to make into a pattie or ball to dehydrate.

[spiralgirl]

Diana Cda,

I know what you mean about Alissa's book. I also live in Canada and have a gift certificate for amazon.ca which doesn't sell her book but amazon.com does. It's frustrating. The good news is I might be able to get my local bookstore to get it in for me.

[Aasyah]

I would definitely make a dip like Alissa's spinach dip and maybe the cheddar cheese spread...and blend possible with ground sunflower or almonds to make into a pattie or ball to dehydrate.


This sounds great i love cheese and i have not tried the raw version. I am going to try this. Thanks for sharing:)

[Diana Cda]

Did you ever make this Aasyah? :)

[spiralgirl]

Diana,

Okay I read your thread and was out shopping and bought spinach to try and whip something up in the blender. I'll post here if it works out. Last night I made a Feta spread out of almond pulp that was really good and may throw that in with the spinach. Also have fresh pesto made too so I'll have to experiement a bit.

[Yeshia]

Hi I am from Montreal Canada and I found ordering Allisa's book a breeze!

The exchange rate is almost on par, the shipping minimal and it arrived in 2 days.

The dvds were wonderful. The book is packed solid with info and yummy photos.

A satisfied customer here :)

Yeshia

oxoxoox

[spiralgirl]

Yeisha,

That's great to know because I want to get her book. Did you pay the $5.00 duty fee and then duty charges on top of that?

Your right now is a good time to get it?

[spiralgirl]

Diana,

Okay just got around to trying this today. They taste great raw but are in the dehydrator now and have been in a few hours.

Here is a before picture:

http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k186/foofooberry/DSCN0429.jpg

They have already shrunk a bit and will even more when they are done. I'm thinking this would be a good filling inside of seaweed pockets too. I've written down what I did to post later if I like the taste.

[Yeshia]

Yeisha,

That's great to know because I want to get her book. Did you pay the $5.00 duty fee and then duty charges on top of that?

Your right now is a good time to get it?

Hello to you,

They ship it as a gift and so I paid no duty or taxes lol:)

You will love it !!

Yeshia

oxoxoxoox

[Veganforlife]

I took about 1-1.5 cups of sunflower seeds and chopped in the food processor. I chopped these pretty fine, but there was a lot that were not chopped as fine. Put that into a bowl.

Then I took half an onion, about a cup of carrots and chopped them (roughly) in the food processor. I added this to the sunflower seeds. Then about 1 cup of ground flax seeds - add to the bowl.

I then made Alissa's spinach dip (actually using half the recipe), added this to the bowl with about a tablespoon Herbs de Province, mixed this up, formed into balls and placed on the mesh screen and they've been in the dehydrator.

The "dough" tasted pretty good, so I'm sure these will be great.

[Veganforlife]

Here's mine

[LivingRawGirl]

So tell us Lucy, how were they? Did they turn out well, would you make them again? The photos look great!

[Veganforlife]

They were very good and yep, I'll make them again, for sure! Only thing I keep forgetting that dehydrating foods intensifies the flavors. So less Herbs de Province next time - LOL!
Also these are good with a sauce over them like the raw deviled egg "egg-less" spread.

[Diana Cda]

Diana,

Okay just got around to trying this today. They taste great raw but are in the dehydrator now and have been in a few hours.

Here is a before picture: [snip]

They have already shrunk a bit and will even more when they are done. I'm thinking this would be a good filling inside of seaweed pockets too. I've written down what I did to post later if I like the taste.Awesome, thanks for posting the before and after pictures. These do look very good!

What did you do, ultimately, to get this. Can you post the process? I imagine you modified a recipe. Would like to know what you did. Thanks! :)

[LearningDaily]

...formed into balls and placed on the mesh screen and they've been in the dehydrator.




Lucy, how long did you end up dehydrating these?

Thanks

[Veganforlife]

Hey there! At minimum 8 hours? I'm not really sure. I know it was a pretty good amount of time. I'd say let 'em go for a while and taste one. If it's not quite where you want it to be? Dehydrate longer. Sorry, that was pretty vague, huh...

[LearningDaily]

Thanks! Raw food prep is all about the vagueness. :p