Author: Sarah Chan

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Vegetable/Juice Pulp Crackers

Vege Cracker

So if you ended up making the Celery Juice with our MISA Bags or any juice for that matter you’ll know that juicing creates a fair amount of waste and leaves behind pretty much all the fibre.

If you’re looking for a way to reduce food waste and don’t have/want to compost this cracker recipe is delicious.

Crackers are one of my favourite things and also one of those foods that can be incredibly hard to find package free.

This recipe is vegan-friendly, gluten and dairy-free and can easily be adapted to your tastes and whatever nuts and seeds you have in the pantry, so get creative.

Would love to hear if you try this recipe out and see your pictures.

Tag us @misacollective! Happy Snacking 🙂

Ingredients

  • 1C juice pulp
  • 1 C Nuts – I like ½C Raw Almonds, 1/2C Cashews
  • 1/2C Sunflower Seeds
  • ½ C Pumpkin Seeds
  • â…“ C Flaxseeds
  • 1/4t tsp salt
  • 1 Tbsp Chia Seeds
  • 2 Tbsp White & or Black Sesame Seeds for sprinkling on top
  • 1 Tbsp Spices/herbs of your choice
  • Optional: Nutritional Yeast, Tamari or Tomato Puree – Offers more Umami
  • 1-3 Tbsp of water – dependant on how much juice pulp

        YIELD: Makes two trays

 

Equipment

Food proccessor/Personal Blender
Parchment Paper/Silicone Baking Mats

Method

  1. Preheat oven on fab-bake 150 (302 Degrees F).
  2. In a food processor add the nuts, blitz until it resembles a rough breadcrumb texture. 
  3. Add the sunflower, pumpkin and flax seeds and chia seeds, herbs and spices, salt & blitz again.
  4. Add the nutritional yeast/tomato puree/tamari, juice pulp and blitz – the mixture should come away from the sides creating a sticky dough, add water until this is a spreadable mixture. (If you’re using a personal blender you may need to tip the dry ingredients out into a large bowl before adding wet ingredients for more mixing room).
  5. Place parchment paper or silicone baking mats on an oven tray, if your tray isn’t flat flip it over and out the paper/mat on the bottom surface to create a flat tray for more even cooking.
  6. Spread the mixture out as evenly as possible (TIP: sandwiching between parchment paper/mats and using a rolling pin/jar allows for a less sticky situation and more even spreading)
  7. Make cuts in the mixture to create your shapes or leave whole to be broken up into shards once cooked.
  8. Sprinkle over seeds and herbs.
  9. Bake low and slow to dry the crackers out, checking on them and moving regularly – once they hold their shape it’s a good idea to spread them out – the outer edges will cook faster. I like to shuffle them around and space them out on a grilling rack to get the optimal crunch. 

Vege Cracker Method Photos

 

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Home Sprouting

mung beans unsprouted in jar

Sprout jar blog

 

Buying sprouts at the supermarket – why would you? In a single-use plastic container and costing 500% more than the cost of the small handful of seeds it takes to make the same amount. Home sprouting is a no brainer.

Home sprouting is an easy, inexpensive way to grow your own superfood and a fun experiment for kids. Sprouting is the process of germinating seeds, beans and grains to be eaten raw or cooked and are a great way of adding extra nutrients to your meals, add them to a, stir fry, sandwich or salad. Sprouting helps to neutralize anti-nutrients & phytic acid. They also help to increase beneficial enzymes, vitamins & minerals. Some of the more common seeds to sprout are lentils, mung beans, broccoli seeds, pumpkin and sunflower seeds.

There have been a number of reports of commercially grown sprouts causing food poisoning – namely E-Coli and Salmonella. But don’t be afraid or deterred! Home sprouting is a whole different kettle of fish to commercially grown sprouts. You can control the environment and conditions of your home and if you follow some basic safe sprouting rules of thumb you can’t go wrong. 

So Here They Are…

 

*CLEAN WATER 

For both soaking and rinsing of the seeds/beans/grains, ideally filtered.

*AVOID STANDING WATER

The sprouts should never be sitting in water, rinsed, drained with good air circulation.

*RINSE REGULARLY

To remove any unwanted substances being released from the sprouts ie; starch

*TEMPERATURE

Be mindful of warm and humid conditions as this can be a breeding ground for bacteria. With adequate rinsing and airflow, this should not be a problem. You can rinse 2-3 times a day if it is really warm.

*STORAGE

Make sure sprouts and well-drained, washed and fairly dry before storing to avoid excess moisture.

*BEST BEFORE

Consume in timely fashion Make sure to eat the sprouts within 3-5 days to enjoy them at their best. Only sprout what you need so they can be eaten at their freshest and to avoid any unnecessary food waste.

Here’s how to sprout with MISA Bags

 

  1. Place seeds in a MISA Bag and rinse well with cool water and drain, removing any stones, debris or damaged seeds.
  2. Place the rinsed seeds in a  bowl and fill it ¾ full with cool water. Cover the jar/bowl with the MISA Bag, use the cord and toggle to secure around the lip of the bowl. The mesh allows airflow. On average you should soak your seeds for at least 8 hours, some larger seeds can require more time for example kidney beans and chickpeas can often take 24 hours. You are looking for the seeds to have doubled in size.
  3. After soaking, invert the bowl, tipping the seeds into the bag, rinse well, shaking out excess moisture.
  4. Lay them flat and spread out – I like to use an oven tray and cover them with a slightly damp tea towel to keep them moist but not sitting in any water.
  5. Rinse and drain the seeds under cool running water. The seeds will need to be rinsed 2 times a day until the sprout tails appear – usually 2-5 days. You’re looking for the tails to grow at least the length of the bean, seed or grain.
  6. Hang to dry, before storing them in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Will last for up to a week.

 

Home Sprouting Steps

 

7. Enjoy, raw or cooked, in a salad, stir fry, buddha bowl or a wrap. Yum! Too easy and so worth it!

Finished Sprouts

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Celery Juice

Celery Juice

Celery, one of the more ‘boring’, less eaten and often overlooked ‘non-exciting’ vegetables actually deserves a little bit of love and a lot more limelight on its health benefits.

Celery belongs to the Apiaceae family and is a marshland plant that has been around since, well, forever – by which I mean earliest reports of celery coming in around the middle ages.

So what are the benefits of celery?

Research has shown that celery has been known to help with weight loss, lowering blood pressure and cholesterol levels, reducing arthritic pain, detoxifying benefits, gut health, eczema, autoimmune disorders, IBS, vertigo, cancer, and heart disease. 2019 seems to be not only the year of the pig but the year of celery juicing.

Here’s why. Celery is rich in Vitamins (including B Vitamins, Riboflavin, Folic Acid, Thiamin, B6 & B12, A, C, D, E & K), Minerals ( Potassium, Zinc, Copper, Iron, Zinc, Calcium, and Sodium)  and fiber according to the USDA National Nutrient Database.

Who started the celery juice movement?

The Medical Medium Anthony William swears by celery juicing as a medicinal drink and has been drinking it straight on an empty stomach as a child since 1975. He is responsible for the Global Celery Juice Movement which is showing up all over social media and being supported by sports people, musicians, models and actors including Novak Djokovic, Pharrell, Miranda Kerr, Debra Messing & Jenna Dewan.

Why did I give celery juicing a go?

As someone who has IBS symptoms, bloating and eczema – possibly autoimmune related I decided to give celery juicing a go. It seemed like a healthy and natural possible solution to the other treatment options I had previously tried. Let’s face it leafy green vegetables are a winner either way and are obviously a lot less harmful than steroids, lotions, potions, and tablets.

So I tried out the Medical Medium’s recipe, bearing in mind this is a one ingredient juice/medicine not some fancy green smoothie with all the extras. I found it surprisingly delicious, easy to drink, especially over ice and psychologically I felt like I was treating my body more kindly than the usual strong coffee first thing in the morning. But that still followed… just a little later.

And the verdict….

The benefits of this green tonic became apparent very quickly, alleviating bloating symptoms, helping with my digestion and relieving me of the fatigue I often felt over the course of the day. My skin, chronically covered in eczema started to clear, felt less itchy and irritated. It’s now become part of the daily routine. With a little prep, I wash and chop the celery the night before for quicker blending in my Nutribullet to make the mornings a little bit less chaotic. One thing I can say about celery juice is that it hasn’t improved my ‘I’m not a morning person’ persona. Sorry, husband.

It has also created a lot of celery remnants in my house from the leaves to the juice pulp which has spurred on my zero food waste mission. More on that later.

Celery Juice Recipe

Ingredients

1 bunch of celery (organic wherever possible) well washed.

Equipment

Juicer

Or

High Speed Blender with strainer (fine mesh bag/ cheesecloth or duh a MISA Reusable Produce Bag).

Method

I prefer the high speed blender option because the clean up is SO EASY – juicers are way too much of a hassle to clean for a lazybones like me. Just throw the celery in and blitz to a pulp. Literally squeeze the juice from the pulp through a MISA Mesh bag.

Aim for 16oz/473 mls every morning, drink immediately on an empty stomach.

 

 

Don’t forget to scoop out the pulp and keep it for making celery crackers – recipe to follow. Meanwhile, turn the MISA Produce Bag inside out, rinse and chuck into your next cold machine wash. Sometimes if I’m in a hurry I just turn the bag inside out and let it sit in a jug of cold water – all the pulp settles at the bottom for an easy rinse out and clean up later.

 

 

Stay tuned for what to do with all that leftover pulpy goodness soon….recipes to come!

 

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MISA RPET Mesh Bags

Bet you didn’t think you could fit a watermelon in our MISA Bags! Not that you’d ever do that … Baby from Dirty Dancing didn’t need one.

 

 

 

 

MISA mesh produce bags are so much mightier than they seam… (typo on purpose!). With enforced double stitching they are super strong and can hold 2-3 kgs. That’s a heavy watermelon! Or a bucket load of apples for apple pie.

The mesh itself is also pretty special. It is super expandable. Like how you wish your waistband would be after an amazing potluck dinner. You know the feeling. That’s another reason why this watermelon picture explains so much. But it’s not just about fitting in more… it’s also about straining out less.

With the perfect mesh hole size, MISA Reusable Mesh Produce Bags are the best thing when you’re looking to get all home-makery in the kitchen. No fussing around with deteriorating cheesecloth, or moldy cotton or scrubbing strainers… use a MISA mesh bag instead! We love to use ours for easy clean up juicing (dream!)because we hate washing all the finicky bits of a juicer machine. Making milk alternatives on the cheap is our new hobby – cue dairy intolerant partners requests!

If you’re like me, you really are making attempts to ditch the single-use bags- but I get to the checkout counter and all my fruit is rolling around and I get the checkout sweats as I try to wrangle them. Let’s be real friends, these beauties are gonna make your checkout a breeze. Oh and that mesh I keep on harping about- makes a grand difference here too because MISA Mesh bags are truly transparent. There’s no need for the checkout person to manhandle your fruit and open up the bag to identify them. Then it’s straight home to wash, dry and store, keeping them in the bag the whole time. So much less fuss. Did you know they also help in keeping your fruit last longer? The breathable mesh allows ethylene gas to escape which prevents the over-ripening of fruit. Sayonara squishy, bruised fruit.

Seriously, MISA reusable produce bags are the easiest alternative to single-use plastic bags. They weigh nothing so stash some in your handbag, tote, backpack, reusable shopping bag and march along to the farmer’s markets, shops or local greengrocers like the eco-conscious boss that you are. Guys can even scrunch them into pockets- in case you’re the type that gets weird about carrying a man purse.

‘Nuff said. These MISA Reusable Mesh Bags are a win!

Now… I’m off to get some fresh groceries and organize a potluck dinner.

#makeityours

 

 

 

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Why RPET?

Why RPET?

PET is one of the most common types of plastic/packaging found in your average household. Most of us casually use single use plastic every day without really thinking about it. That cheeky croissant on the way to work, the coffee, the receipt for car parking tickets. All of these items might serve a purpose for anywhere between 10 minutes and a few hours – unfortunately, these bags, cups, and receipts will live on far longer than us. You might be thinking what’s one bag, one cup… says seven billion people. With experts saying there could be more plastic than fish in the ocean by volume by 2050, we were driven to create

MISA as a response to the use of our oceans as a dumping ground.

We at MISA Collective want Everyone to be part of the solution.

Our reusable produce bags are made using RPET – Recycled polyethylene Terephthalate AKA single-use plastic bottles. By choosing RPET we are making a conscious choice to upcycle a material that already exists. We thought about organic cotton, we love organic cotton, so pretty, so aesthetically pleasing, but cotton has it’s dirty little secrets too – did you know it takes 10,000 liters of water to make 1 kilogram of cotton, not to mention the pesticides. Cultivating cotton has had devastating effects on the Aral Sea –  what & where is the Aral Sea I hear you ask. Exactly. It WAS the 4th largest lake in the world that is mostly gone due to heavy cotton cultivation in the 60’s. The UN called it

“one of the planet’s worst environmental disasters”. Let’s face it we don’t want to be part of that statistic.

So let us tell you how RPET is made, it’s pretty simple. In reality, we’re surprised not more people are using it.

Post-consumer PET bottles are collected and sent to recycling centers where it is crushed down into bales. The bales are purchased by recycling companies where the PET bottles are crushed, washed, separated and dried out.  These bottles are blitzed into tiny tiny pieces and washed again to give pure PET flakes. These flakes are melted down and spun into a plastic fiber that can be woven into new sheets of material, RPET.

We hope you all use your Keep Cups, Kleenkanteens, Swell bottles and other reusable drink containers like the conscious consumers you are. But while society works on creating less plastic bottles, MISA Collective will add our contribution by choosing RPET and upcycling materials that already exist to lessen the impact on the environment. And we are in good company; fashion brands are also following suit. Eco-conscious favorite Everlane recently launched a whole line of outerwear made entirely from RPET, as did Patagonia with their renewed polyester material. Love that the Movement Into Sustainable Action is happening! What other fashion or homeware brands do you know of making an effort to use recycled source material??

Follow MISA Collective and our Eco Hacks for some more inspiration.

#makeityoursÂ