I was going to highlight some great blogs that are dedicated to raw chocolate in all its healthful glory. Perhaps there aren’t too many around or I just got too hungry during my search and gave up too soon. The latter is probably true.
Being Easter for some, I wanted to write something about chocolate, but, to tell you the truth, all I can think about is eating it. So, the best option I’ve decided is share a recipe from one of my fave and oft-visited raw food blogs, The Raw Chef. Oh, and a great book from David Wolfe that’s dedicated to this widely adored, yet sometimes misused, food: Naked Chocolate: The Astonishing Truth About the World’s Greatest Food
If you know of some great blogs that are all about raw chocolate, feel free to leave details in the comments!
For those who celebrate it, happy Easter… For those who don’t, who needs an excuse to eat something this delicious?
Chocolate Torte with Whipped Cashew Cream
For the base
1/2 cup cashews
1/2 cup pecans
1 tablespoon coconut oil
1 tablespoon melted cacao butter
1 teaspoon agave
1 teaspoon lemon juice
- Pulse all ingredients in a food processor until they bind.
- Press into a 9” springform cake pan and place in the fridge to set.
For the filling
1 cup Irish Moss paste*
1 cup cashews
1 1/2 cups cacao powder
3 cups grated or chopped cacao butter which has then been melted
1 cup agave nectar
1/2 cup water
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon tamari
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Blend all ingredients in a high-speed blender until smooth and pour on top of the base.
- Leave in the fridge to set.
*Irish Moss paste can be made by soaking 1 cup Irish Moss in water for 3 – 5 hours and rinsing THOROUGHLY until rinse water turns clear (there’ll be a lot of sand in the moss). Then blend the rinsed moss with 2 cups pure water in a Vita-Mix until completely smooth. Leave to set in the fridge if not using straight away.
Chef’s tip: Add 1 drop of peppermint essential oil to the filling mixture for a mint chocolate variation.
For the cream topping
1 cup cashews, soaked for 2 hours or more
1/2 cup water
3 tablespoons Irish Moss paste
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup agave nectar
1 teaspoon lemon juice
Pinch salt
1 tablespoon macadamia oil (optional)
- Blend all ingredients in a high-speed blender until smooth.
- Serve with chocolate torte and fresh berries.
I’ve always loved cookies. Pre-vegan, they were my “can’t say no to” treats. If a cookie was on offer, I was there, no questions asked. These days, it’s easy to say no to any food that isn’t vegan. But that hasn’t stopped the love for my sweet old pal, the cookie. Nowadays, I’m in the kitchen trying my hand at baking my own recipes. So far, so good… but I also like to get a helping hand from Google every now and again.
My latest find is from Nourishingmeals.com. While not all of their recipes are vegan, some definitely are—such as these gluten free, vegan, flourless choc chip cookies…
Almond Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
¼ cup raw agave nectar
¼ teaspoon sea salt
¼ to ½ cup mini chocolate chips (or cacao nibs)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a large cookie sheet with coconut oil.
Note: Quinoa Flakes are made from organic quinoa that is steam-rolled into a quick cooking quinoa flake.
Recipe and photo courtesy: Nourishingmeals.com
Sweet potato in a smoothie? When I saw this recipe in Susan Smith Jones’ The Healing Power of Nature Foods, I was intrigued. Who puts a root vegetable in a drink? Susan Smith Jones and many others it seems.
So I took my intrigue into the kitchen and whipped up my own chocolate sweet potato smoothie. It was downright delicious.
As all good things deserved to be shared, here is the recipe in all its glorious flavour. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Yum!
Chocolate Sweet Potato Smoothie
(Serves 2-4)
• 2 cups juice (orange, apple, cranberry or almond milk, or any combination). For this step I made my own almond milk. See recipe here.
• 1 cup cooks sweet potato or yam flesh
• 4-5 pitted medjool dates
• 1 ripe frozen banana
• 1 1/2 tsp of cocoa (or raw carob powder)
• Dash of cinnamon
Preparation:
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I’m not quite sure why I’m researching cookie recipes in the middle of a seven-day fast … but anyway, I had to share this delicious-looking vegan recipe from The Daily News, courtesy of Baby Cakes NYC.
Gifting vegan goodies such as these to friends and neighbours is not only a nice thing to do over the holidays, it also shows others just how unlimited, and great tasting, the vegan diet is. Enjoy!
Serves: 36
Ingredients
6 tablespoons homemade applesauce or store-bought unsweetened applesauce
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons pure vanilla extract
1¼ cups evaporated cane juice
2 cups Bob’s Red Mill gluten-free,
all-purpose baking flour
¼ cup flax meal
1 teaspoon baking soda
1½ teaspoons xanthan gum
1 cup vegan chocolate chips
Instructions
1. Preheat the oven to 325. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. In a medium bowl, mix together the oil, applesauce, salt, vanilla and cane juice. In another medium bowl, whisk together the flour, flax meal, baking soda and xanthan gum. Using a rubber spatula, carefully add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture and stir until a grainy dough is formed. Gently fold in the chocolate chips just until they are evenly distributed throughout the dough.
3. Using a melon baller, scoop the dough onto the prepared baking sheets, spacing the portions 1 inch apart. Gently press each with the heel of your hand to help them spread. Bake the cookies on the center rack for 15 minutes, rotating the sheets 180 degrees after 9 minutes. The finished cookies will be crisp on the edges and soft in the center.
4. Let the cookies stand on the sheets for 10 minutes, then transfer them to a wire rack and cool completely before covering. Store the cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to three days.
5. Slather a generous dollop of your favorite frosting between two of these cookies and you’ve got your newest addiction, a BabyCakes NYC cookie sandwich.
I love my local library. You just never know what treasures you can to find. For a not-so-vegan-friendly community where I live (that is, it’s hard to find a restaurant that doesn’t use animal products in every dish), I’ve been surprised to discover quite a few books on vegan topics.
The latest find is RAW from Charlie Trotter and Roxanne Klein — two celebrated US chefs who actively promote sustainable living and showcase it through their incredible culinary pursuits. Many of which are featured in RAW.
With recipes such as Mediterranean Cheese Salad with Dragon Crackers and Indian Red Peaches with Vanilla Ice Cream and Pecan Praline, this talented duo show just how diverse and satisfying a raw diet can be (although they do include not-so-veganesque raw honey in some recipes, which I’d suggest switching up with raw agave nectar).
Plus with gorgeous pics from photographer Tim Turner you’ll want to un-cook every recipe in the book. I’m starting with the sweet stuff: banana chocolate tart with caramel and chocolate sauces, minus the honey of course.
So GMO non-organic soy is out. What to pour over your oats now? Well, the answer is simple—and so much more delicious and nutritious than any supermarket packaged non-dairy milks that are often laden with preservatives and goodness knows what else.
Making your own almond milk at home takes a small amount of preparation, and not only leaves you with great tasting milk, but also the peace of mind knowing exactly where it came from.
As with any recipe, you can change this around to suit your specific taste. Even add some raw cacao for a chocolate drink like no other. Here is the basic recipe I use to make my very own fresh almond milk. Enjoy!
Raw Almond Milk
1 cup of soaked raw almonds
Spring water for soaking
3 cups of spring water (for actual milk)
3 to 6 pitted dates
• Almonds are best soaked overnight in a refrigerator, but if you’re in a rush, soak for a couple of hours and you’ll still be on your way to making a fabulous milk. Be sure to rinse them before using.
• I usually soak the dates in spring water for half an hour or so, but this isn’t always necessary if you’re using soft dates.
Blend the soaked almonds with the spring water until smooth. Then strain that mix through a strainer or cheesecloth (I find a strainer much easier to use). You can also save the left over pulp to sprinkle over cereal or use in baking recipes. Waste not, want not!
Place the almond milk back into your blender, throw in the dates and blend until smooth.
And, voila, there you have it, fresh almond milk. If you prefer a thinner or thicker milk, simply add or take away water as desired. Your milk will last in the refrigerator for about three days. Be sure to shake before using.
To make vanilla almond milk
Add the seeds from 1 vanilla bean or a natural sweetener such as stevia.
One last tip: You can also add your almond milk to a green smoothie recipe to make it that much more delicious.
Pics courtesy of www.thehealthyeatingsite.com
Okay, so my three day cleanse turned into one. Still, it was the kick start I needed after travelling for the last few weeks.
So today, I find myself at Starbucks, peppermint tea in one hand, Whittaker’s dark chocolate bar in the other. The soya lecithin and flavour additives might not make it the healthiest treat around, but since my diet is usually raw wholefoods, once is okay. Girl’s gotta live a little, right? A nice surprise to find a choccie bar with no dairy!
The not-so-good news about soy? Here’s an excerpt from a Natural News story:
The soy myth
Finally the soy myth needs to be exposed. This is another persistent one among alternative circles. An often-used argument is that soy has been used in Asia for thousands of years. Another half truth. While it is true that soy products were consumed as far back as the Ming Dynasty, only fermented soy was used. Raw soy products such as tofu, soy milk, soy lecithin and soy oil are only 200 to 300 years old. Once again they have been popularized by a powerful industry which has been pulling the wool over our eyes by emphasizing a healthy tradition in fermented soy use and confusing it with unfermented soy. Health food stores sell this as a health food!
What’s so bad about soy? Well, it contains lots of phytic acid, an acid which can also be found in yeast bread but not in sourdough bread. Sourdough bread is a fermented bread which contains lactic acid bacteria and so does fermented soy. Besides eating the sugars in the starch these bacteria also eat the phytic acid. If left intact, phytic acid acts as a mineral blocker. It blocks the absorption of important minerals like iron, zinc, magnesium and calcium. Feeding babies with a so-called lactose allergy soy milk is an absolute disaster. Kids and adults would also do wise to avoid taking unfermented soy.
Fermented soy products are soy sauce (watch out for other harmful ingredients such as sugar, MSG, preservatives and colorants), miso and tempeh. Particularly, Japanese cuisine is very good with fermented soy. Bad news for vegetarians and vegans who often turn to tofu and associated soy products. They too fall victim to the propaganda of a very profitable industry.
Hmmm… should have reminded self of facts above before consuming said chocolate…
