Recipe Directions

1. In the bowl of your food processor, grind the zucchini or eggplant, date, and nuts until a paste forms - about 5 minutes.

2. Add the liquid smoke and black pepper and then process briefly.

3. In a coffee grinder or spice mill, grind the mustard, fennel, red pepper, garlic powder, and paprika until a homogeneous powder forms.

4. Add to the mixture, along with the red pepper, and process the entire mixture until nearly smooth – there will be very small flecks of the almonds left. Let sit in the fridge, tightly covered overnight (to allow flavors to meld). 

5. Either form into rolls or slices about 1 inch in diameter and either use immediately or dehydrate until the desired level of dryness is reached. For pizza, I shape the pepperoni and place them directly on the pizza, since I’ll be dehydrating it already. For a change, you can roll this into long sticks of ‘jerky’ for a snack food.

Poemomm's Thoughts

By poemomm

This recipe makes something very similar to a Hormel pepperoni (the sliced kind you can buy in the store ) and makes a great pepperoni pizza.

This recipe makes quite a bit (a full pound) of the stuff, so you may want to reduce quantities.

One other thing: Keep in mind that dehydrating it for too long will give you a cracker, instead of a pepperoni. Keep checking the recipe until you get the consistency you like.

 

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Comments

Top voted

29 votes
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looks amazing! its great you're kids can eat this at school without feeling humiliated, kids can be so mean! one day when i have raw food children they're gonna eat this too!

26 votes
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do you think mesquite powder would be a good substitute for liquid smoke?

23 votes
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Oh, I'm in love! Thank you!!!!!

All

11 votes
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I just made up a batch of this. It taste delicious, but unfortunately it is not a paste, more of a liquid. I have it in the fridge now to "meld the flavors together" and I'm hoping it will magically turn into a paste. I used up all my nuts trying to make it thicker. : / Not sure where I went wrong. Any ideas on how to make it thicker without using nuts?

12 votes
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Here's a conversion chart (volume vs. weight) that includes almonds and zucchini: http://www.veg-world.com/articles/cups.htm. There are 16 ounces in a pound.

18 votes
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I apologize for this question. I don't have a scale. How much would 1/2 pound of zucchini be? (1 med. 2 med.?) Also for the almonds, would 1 cup measured equal the 1/2 pound?

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Chipotle is also quite smoky. Not raw, but spicy and as Poemomm says, to be considered a flavor additive in small quantities.

16 votes
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Braggs Liquid Aminos has a similar taste to liquid smoke.

29 votes
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looks amazing! its great you're kids can eat this at school without feeling humiliated, kids can be so mean! one day when i have raw food children they're gonna eat this too!

Top Voted
16 votes
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This looks marvelous.

BTW: ground cumin seed makes a wonderful replacement for liquid smoke and actually has cancer-prevention properties.

19 votes
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yacon syrup! I'll have to get some of that

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Poemomm, you are a raw saint! I haven't even dehydrated mine yet (or waited overnight), but the flavor in this is amazing! It has been years since I had pepperoni, and I never imagined I'd be able to enjoy it again! Thank you for giving us this fantastic recipe, it's like a guilt-free time machine to my childhood favorite!

For non-liquid-smokers: I used yacon syrup instead of the date, as it kind of has that bitter, burnt flavor. It turned out great! But because I haven't tried it with the smoke, I can't say whether it is an accurate substitute.

15 votes
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Renoir, let me know if you try it eith mesquite powder - I haven't ever tried it for anything yet.

I made this with only half the liquid smoke, but I would like to try it without it, if the flavor will be good.

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might be. Don't really know.

26 votes
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do you think mesquite powder would be a good substitute for liquid smoke?

Top Voted
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Wow! Thanks!

18 votes
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You should make your own book of recipes! these are all awesome!

23 votes
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Oh, I'm in love! Thank you!!!!!

Top Voted
19 votes
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thank you!

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jeshuabrown- i belive liquid smoke is also known as colgin, and while not raw, it is vegan (at least my bottle of it says it is). i use it very seldomly so I'm not too concerned about it, and you usually only need a very small amount to flavor a dish. but of couse, depending on how strict you are with your diet. it does do wonders though for meat substitutes. I probably use it 3 times a year, so i don't think it's going to do much damage to me

17 votes
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*jackiev* I'd use half of a large eggplant (peel it first) and about 2 c of almonds.

*jeshuabrown* Love the name.

Liquid smoke is evil, to be perfectly blunt, and I wouldn't recommend it for hard-core raw foodists (feel free to leave it out). I'm not a hard-corer (I eat cooked food, on occasion) and feel it's an allowable compromise ONCE IN A WHILE, since most of my diet consists of very unprocessed raw food.

Liquid smoke, to be exact, is smoke that condenses on a funnel and is then collected. It's literally liquid-smoke. Carcenogenic, for sure, :-

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So, what exactly is liquid smoke? It sounds terrifying! Can you tell us the ingredients?

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poemomm - your recipes are just too amazing!! you even got me craving pepperoni! i was just wondering, about how much eggplant and almonds are a half a pound? half a large eggplant and a cup or two of almonds?

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