Raw Coconut-Salted Jungle Peanut-Chocolate Bars…OH MY!

Helllllloooo, Lovers!

Lastnight I had a hankering for something treat-like and had the desire to experiment in the kitchen. My kitchen handiwork has been a bit sparse and patchy lately as I’ve been either too busy (or too out of town!) to get in there, or just plain un-inspired. After spending a week with Besty and making some interesting desserts, I decided I would see what I could come up with with all the fun and delicious things I had kicking around in my pantry!

So, here is what I pulled out as my inspiration: (in order of appearance, left to right)

Organic vanilla powder, coconut butter, mesquite powder, coconut nectar, cacao powder, jungle peanuts, coconut oil and shredded coconut.

Ingredients...

So, I had a rough idea in my head of what I was going to make…chocolate balls rolled in coconut and coconut balls with chocolate. Simple…

I started with the Artisana Coconut Butter (honestly, if you’ve never tried this, go get some…it’s like nothing else). I put some into a bowl and put the bowl over hot water (double boiler idea) to melt it into liquid consistency.

coconut butter in it's hot water melting tank

It starts like this:

hard at room temp

…and turns into this!!!

you'll want to bathe in this, trust me!

So, while that was melting, I was also melting the coconut oil (I use Nutiva, I like it, it’s organic and extra virgin, doesn’t go rancid and is a good price…I just got a huge container of it at Planet Organic on sale-I use it on my skin as well, so it’s worth it for me to buy the big one). I added melted coconut oil (used the same bowl over hot water method for the coconut oil) and agave syrup (I think I might have added some coconut nectar as well but I can’t remember-use whatever kind of sweetener YOU like) to the grated coconut and then added a bit of coconut butter to thicken it up a bit until I got the “stick-togetherness” that I was looking for. (Remember, it doesn’t have to be fully stuck together in a ball because it will harden up when you put it in the fridge…what gets warm and melts, must cool down and get hard…!!). THIS is what it looked like before I put it in the pan:

From there, I crushed the jungle peanuts in a bag and then added some celtic sea salt, maple syrup and mesquite powder and mixed it all up. I wanted a caramely salty crunchy nutty layer…Mesquite has an almost caramel type flavour to it and the rest of the flavours just worked together so well.

coconut layer with jungle peanut layer...

So, as you see, I pressed the coconut into a corning wear pan lined with plastic wrap (it’s way easier to get out of the pan if you line it). Then I made the chocolate and poured it over the top. The chocolate was melted coconut OIL with cacao powder, agave and a little vanilla powder. I used the Vitamix to get it nice a smooth. I had to til the pan from side to side once I had the chocolate over it so I could get the chocolate over the whole thing!

ready for the fridge!

The final product is tasty! I don’t know if I would do the jungle peanut layer the same next time…next time I might try pecans or brazils…both of those nuts are a bit heavier and might give a better flavour…alternatively, my peanuts could have been not the freshest and maybe I’d experiment with the ingredients a bit more….skip the mesquite, add salt and cayenne!! OK, so here is a pic of what it looked like…half eaten…

Voila!

You’re on your own for measurements…you know me well enough by now…just add slowly slowly and eventually you’ll get it right! If you are organized, write down the measurements as you go so if you come up with a real winner, you’ll be able to recreate it another time!!

This dessert is indeed a dessert, but it’s got no refined sugars or fats. As far as sweet chocolatey coconutty things, this one definitely wins hands down!

Enjoy, my ittle Coconut Clusters, you deserve to eat delicious things

Love,

Ida xx

ps…tomorrow I think I’ll tell you about my new love affair with chia….stay tuned!

 

current obsession –> tahini dressing

I’ve posted a couple on yoga, I thought I’d throw a foodie post out there as well!

My current favourite obsession is tahini dressing…but not any old tahini dressing, my home made tahini dressing!

Here you go, and be warned, I do not have measurements (but, you might be getting used to this from me already!)

Raw Tahini (about 1/3 of a jar…ish…?) (I like the Maranatha brand)

Fresh lemon juice (1-2 lemons depending on how lemony you like it and/or how much other ingredients you are using)

Honey (again, depends on how much you are making)

Water (might be equal to the other ingredients total, depending on the desired consistency)

Salt and pepper as needed. (and any other seasonings you like…garlic, cayenne, etc)

*blend it all together

*start slowly with your ingredients and taste as you go. Once you make this a few times you can throw caution to the wind and dump it all in the blender without much thought and it will be perfect, but it may take a bit of time to get the ratios to your liking 😉

This dressing will keep for quite a while in the fridge. I like to put it on my salad…as well as pretty well anything else I eat (steamed veggies, quinoa, etc).

Kale-Chips-A-Go-Go…

Hi!

Yesterday I was at the Root Cellar and saw this ah-mazing kale…locally grown…3 for $5 bucks. My brain immediately went to kale chips, of course!! Lots and lots of kale chips.

Now, if you’ve not tried Kale chips yet, imagine a tasty little crispy bite that almost melts in your mouth, is as addictive as a bag of potato chips but is waaaaaay better for you…are you imagining?…good, now I have your attention!

Kale chips are ridiculously easy to make and yet I still find myself buying them (and, like most things, I inevitably prefer the one I make to the (over-priced) ones I buy…ain’t that always the way. So, here I was with all this Kale so I was forced into making them this morning. Here’s what they consisted of today:

Kale Chips 3 Ways…

Kale Chip #1~

olive oil, lime juice, celtic sea salt, chili powder

Kale Chip #2~

olive oil, apple cider vinegar, celtic sea salt, cayenne pepper

Kale Chip #3~ (this one was a bit of an after thought, so it was made with a base of the other 2 flavours already and had the pesto added)

pesto (see blog post from a couple days ago with pesto “recipe”)

For All Three Varieties~

tear kale off of stems and tear into medium sized leaf chunks. Wash WELL and spin dry. Put in a large bowl, drizzle olive oil over and massage a moment, then add the remaining ingredients (as previously mentioned, I don’t really ever measure anything, so start slow with the seasonings and add to your taste…however, GO SLOWLY with the seasonings because THE FLAVOUR GETS MAGNIFIED IN THE DEHYDRATOR! I tell you this because the first batch I ever made was sooooo salty I couldn’t eat them…and that’s saying a-lot because I loooove kale!).

Place them in the dehydrator-I usually try to have the on every 2nd tray (in the Excalubur) because the are so fluffy (is that a word I can use to describe kale?) before dehydrating. Dehydrate on 105 degrees for a few hours…they are good all along the dehydration process, but to totally dry they are about 4 ish hours…good luck if they all make it to that stage!

They don't fill the sheets as well when they're dried!

If you see me over the next few days, please tell me if there’s kale in my teeth…I have a feeling there might be…

Raw Cacao Goji Granola

This past weekend I made some raw chocolate. It wasn’t my best attempt at raw chocolate, but I was being fairly laisse faire about the whole thing, and not really paying attention to measurements. Well, needless to say, it turned out OK, but not the best ever. So, I had all this chocolate left over (after dipping the raw macaroons, as well as making little heart shaped truffles)…so, I decided to make some kind of granola thing. My original thought was to make granola bars…but, again I was careless with measuring, so ended up with a mixture that wasn’t going to bind together, but rather stay crumbly. So, the granola was born.

Here is what went into it…you’ll just have to use your imagination and tastebuds with measurements, as, well, you know.

Raw Cacao Goji Granola:

Chocolate “fudge” (cacao powder, cacao butter, agave, coconut nectar, coconut oil)

Raw buckwheaties (soaked, sprouted, dehydrated buckwheat)

Pumpkin, Sunflower and Sesame seeds (all soaked and dehydrated)

Goji berries.

Mix it all together, get it coated, then pop it in the dehydrator…guess you don’t have to dehydrate it again, but I think it’ll keep better/longer this way. Seriously, sooo yummy!

(sorry it’s kinda small, but hopefully you get the idea!)

Raw Cacao Goji Granola

New Family Traditions

Good morning, everyone! It’s Monday, a holiday, and I’m still nestled in my bed. It’s raining outside, I’ve got my pot of tea and I’m not really planning on moving any time soon! Some days you need that, don’t you think? (I’ve been learning a lot about balance and finding and creating time for everything in my life, not just work/yoga…but that’s a whole other post!).

This weekend we had a Passover Seder. This is the first year since I was a young child that we’ve done it. My mom was raised in the Jewish faith, so when I was young, we (her side of the family) had Passover dinners at my grandparents place. I did not grow up “religious” in any way, but knew about the seder. My experience of the seder was always that we got to drink yummy grape juice and hide the afikomen (matzo) and then get money as a ransom to bring it back.

This year, however, my mom decided that she wanted to do a Passover Seder (instead of just having a generic “easter dinner”). Now, I’m a raw foodie. My mom is now mostly vegan and quite raw as well. My brother and his wife are vegetarians, and the rest of my family (my sister-cousin and her family) are omnivores ;). So, you can see that the menu was going to pose a certain finesse if we were going to all be able to enjoy the food, as well as the company.

Traditionally, Passover fare is quite meat-heavy (chopped liver, lamb, fish, etc). However, what my mom was able to do (with a little help from yours truly) is take the essence of the traditional food and what it represents, and make “substitutions” (perhaps, “new incarnations” is a better term for it in this case).

Check out the bottom of this post for our version of the traditional Passover Seder Plate. (As well as a couple others).

After a bit of brain-storming, a bit of googling and web surfing, we came up with a fabulous menu, all vegan and mostly raw! It even included raw mock chopped liver, raw mock gefilte fish, raw tsimmis, raw matzo (that was un-edible, we had to throw it out!) and raw borscht. Some of the recipes were inspired from this site. Everyone loved all the food and enjoyed breaking matzo together…I think it was our best family dinner yet!

This weekend we were able to create some new traditions in my family. I cannot tell you how happy it made me that my family was willing to share in an “alternative” style meal as a whole (rather than me making one or two things to serve along side a large bird or something). Again, I am shown that forcing people into something that I believe will never make them believe it too…I have to live my life as I believe, and eventually hope to inspire the people around me by who I’m being…and allow them to find their own path.

Happy Passover, Eater and whatever else you may be celebrating at this time…maybe you’re just celebrating a day off, as I am!

Raw Tsimmis

Raw Borscht!

Raw Passover Seder Plate