One of my favourite ways to get more vegetables into my boys diet is with a veggie pate. Carrots are especially delicious in this type of dip as they have a naturally sweet taste and roasting them first condenses their flavour even more. I love the idea of adding the hemp oil that Lemcke gifted me recently into this pate as its best not to heat this highly nutritious oil as it will denature. There are many ways you can use this potent oil, both externally and internally but of course I am mainly interested in what nutritional punch it packs!
This dark green nutty, flavorful oil comes from the raw seeds of the hemp plant and is rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids, omega 6 and omega 3. There are even several studies that show that the linoleic acid present in hemp oil can slow down the aging process and fight psoria. Besides all these benefits it has a distinctive flavour and also works well in salad dressings.
This pate can be used in sandwiches or on crackers and can also be served as a dip with snacks. The soaked cashews give it a creaminess and richness and the caraway seeds work so well with the carrots. Caraway seeds are a spice that is often forgotten an lurking at the back of the spice cupboard, which is such a shame. However you can replace with cumin seeds if you don’t have them to hand.
Ingredients:
- 350g Peeled Organic Carrots
- 1 small thumbnail sized piece peeled ginger
- 2 small garlic cloves peeled
- 1/2 Green Chili de-seeded (optional)
- 1/2 tsp Caraway seeds lightly toasted (can replace with cumin)
- 1/4 cup soaked Cashews (pref overnight – but 3-4 hours fine)
- 1 Tbsp Tahini
- 2 Tbsp Cold Pressed Hemp Oil
- Sea Salt
- Preheat the oven to 180C conventional 160C fan.
- Place your peeled carrots into a foil parcel with the ginger, garlic and toasted caraway seeds and wrap the parcel shut loosely. You are wrapping the carrots as you don’t want them to brown – as that will make the pate a brown colour instead of the attractive orange colour it wants to be 🙂
- Bake the carrots in their parcel for around 40mins until they are cooked, open the parcel and allow the carrots to cool.
- Place the entire contents of the parcel along with the tahini, hemp oil and cashews into a small food processor and blend. Season to taste and add some cold water if you need to loosen the mixture up to get a “spread” style consistency.
- Place in a dish to serve and drizzle a little more of the hemp oil on top. Serve with crusty warm sourdough or crackers at picnics, light lunches, sandwiches in school lunch box’s or even for breakfast!