No Oat Chocolate Granola

OK, I just have to share this one with everyone.  Once again, not my recipe, but it’s so good that I have to share it here. From www.paleoplan.com

It’s definitely gluten-free, dairy-free, wheat-free, and paleo friendly.  I believe even vegan. 

While I was making this, the entire house started to smell of chocolate.  It was out of this world. I made it in the evening, so I had no trouble falling asleep to the seductive aroma of warm chocolate.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup walnuts
• 1 cup almonds
• 1/3 cup raw unpasteurized honey
• 3 Tbsp. Camino Cocoa Powder
• 3 Tbsp. Earth Balance Vegan Butter
• pinch of pink Himalayan Salt
• 1 Tbsp. 100% organic Vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup shredded unsweetened coconut

Here is what you do:

1. Preheat your oven to 225F. 
2. Take walnuts and almonds and pulse in the food processor until it gets a coarse consistency.  You don’t want to end up with a fine nut flour consistency. Leave in the food processor for now.
3. In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt the honey with Earth Balance Butter.  When melted together, add raw fair trade cocoa powder, a pinch of salt and Vanilla extract.  Whisk together until it becomes the consistency of chocolate sauce.
4. Add the chocolate mixture to the nuts in the food processor and pulse so that everything is well incorporated.
5. Now add coconut and pulse again for a few seconds.
6. Spread the entire mixture evenly over a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
7. Place in oven for 3 1/2 hours. 
8. Allow to cool and then break apart into smaller pieces.  I used a large chefs knife to roughly chop it up.

This recipe will make a large container full.  Don’t leave on your countertop unless you want to be tempted to snack on the granola every time you walk past it.  It’s hard not to, so tasty

Endangered Species

All I’ve kept hearing about in blog land this summer is about this amazing chocolate.  I found out it can be purchased at Whole Foods.  Naturally, I was not going to pass up the opportunity to try chocolate.  And since I just spent the last couple of weeks in Vancouver…guess what?  There are 4 Whole Foods locations.  Guess who commuted about an hour each way (via bus and skytrain) from my parents place to hit up the Vancouver Whole Foods store ? I also picked up a few other things while I was there.  Here’s what I snagged up:

I haven’t tried them all yet, I mean I do have to ration them since I won’t be back to Vancouver before Christmas.  But I was highly curious and excited to try the one with the bat.  It’s 72% cocoa and contains cocoa nibs.  Oh my !

Intense Dark is right!  It was soooo soooo good.  I loved the crunch of the nibs, but I found that when I had a craving for some chocolate, all I needed was one or two squares and I was satisfied.  I didn’t take a picture, but my mom had prepared a bowl of fresh peaches (from their tree) and cantaloupe.  I ended up chopping up a couple squares and mixing it in a bowl with the diced peaches and cantaloupe.  I can’t even begin to explain the taste.  All I can say was that it was one of the best deserts I’ve had in a while.  And yet so simple and satisfying. I will let you know what I think of the others when I get a chance to bite into them. 

Did you know that bats don’t use their eyesight to see in the dark?  They use sonar waves to communicate and navigate.  Thank you Endangered Species for teaching me something new about bats   I love how the wrapper contains a variety of information regarding the Endangered species on the front of the bar.

I’d love to hear about your favourite type of chocolate.  Have you tried this brand?  Others?

Back soon !

Brought to you by the letter “A”

I hope everyone is having a great weekend.  Do anything interesting?

Well since it’s been raining all day again, I had to come up with a creative way to spend my day.  I took a peek through my fridge to find ways to use up the rest of my produce before my grocery shop tomorrow and came across a very lonely avocado.  Lately I’ve been eating a lot of avocados in my smoothies, but wanted to use it up differently. 

A little while back I tried out one of Angela’s recipes that looked oh so temping…her Chocolate Torte.  She uses avocados as her base for the filling and like I said before, you’d never taste it.  So I thought why not recreate something of that sort.  So instead of making an entire torte, I decided to make a simple Silken Chocolate Pudding.  (pictures taken on my Blackberry until I get a new camera – sorry for the low quality)

Ingredients and directions for 4 large servings

Place the following ingredients into you Vitamix or Food processor….

• 2 ripe avocados
• 1/4 cup organic raw cocoa powder
• 1/4 cup raw agave nectar
• 2 Teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 Teaspoons of Navita’s Naturals Protein Twister Blend
• 1 Teaspoon Olive Oil (or coconut oil)

Turn on the mixer and gradually add ….. 1/4 cup So Delicious Vanilla Coconut Beverage (or almond milk if you so desire) until you get the consistency that you desire. 

For all those sceptics, believe you me when I say that the avocados cannot be tasted at all.  The cocoa masks their taste.  I’m not a big fan of guacamole because I’m not a huge fan of avocados.  Just make sure you buy ripe avocados.

But if you really want to taste some decadent, rich, chocolaty goodness that’s good for you, you must try this.  Yes, it does have 250 calories per serving (an the servings are fairly large, so feel free to have less), but it’s a healthy fat and definitely satisfies anybody’s chocolate craving.

Even better…it’s raw, vegan, gluten-free, soy-free, and dairy-free!

Back again soon.

Bea

xoxo

Low-fat Chocolicious Brownie muffins

VEGAN + DAIRY-FREE

What can I say about this post other than …. hmm hmm chocolaty good.  I haven’t consumed any treats in such a long time and then I came across a recipe (I can’t remember where though) that featured So Delicious Coconut milk as one of ingredients.  And guess who happened to have an open carton in the fridge… I just had to use it up before it went bad…how could I not? 

Take a look at these bad boys…and they are relatively healthy too. I customized the recipe to my own preference to make them a little more healthy than the original version. Next time I am also going to attempt a gluten-free version of these muffins, but for now, they will have to do with being vegan + dairy-free. I wish I could remember where the original version came from…doh!

Ingredients

• 2 cups Spelt Flour
• 3/4 cup pure cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 Tbsp. baking powder (gluten-free and aluminum free)
• 3/4 cup pure maple syrup
• 1/2 cup 100% pure pumpkin purée
• 1/4 cup raw agave syrup
• 1/2 cup strong brewed espresso
• 1/2 cup So Delicious Vanilla Cocunut milk
• 1 Tbsp. vanilla extract ( I put in a tad more since I love the flavour)
• 2 Tbsp.  olive oil
• 1 handful of organic semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions

• Yield:  12 muffins
• Preheat the oven to 350F.
• In a large bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder.
• In a medium bowl, whisk maple syrup, pumpkin purée, agave syrup, coffee, coconut milk and vanilla.
• Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients.  Add the chocolate chips. 
• Spoon the batter into greased muffin tins about 3/4 full. 
• Bake for 28 minutes or until a toothpick comes out nearly clean.

You will notice the batter is quite stiff and the muffins are very dense, just like a brownie. 

 

They definitely have the consistency of a brownie.

Careful to not over bake them as I think they may get too dry.  They taste great and have a slight coffee aroma.  What I loved about these is that they do not contain one ounce of refined sugar or flour and only 2 Tbsp. of olive oil for the entire recipe.  Doesn’t get much better than that.

Hope you enjoy them as much as I did. But remember, eat in moderation!

Bea

xoxo

Gluten-free, Dairy-free and Vegan Chocolate Cake

Ok guys…this cake is absolutely divine.  You will fall madly in love and you will feel like you are floating into another dimension.  If you are a chocolate lover, addict and want to cheat… I dare you to make this.  And it’s so simple to make too. 

INGREDIENTS

• 10 oz  Dairy-free 72% dark chocolate, chopped or broken into small pieces.
• 7 oz  Earth Balance Butter, diced
• 5 large eggs (Flax substitute for Vegan version) – room temperature
• 1 cup  brown sugar (sucanat)
• 1/4 cup  cocoa powder, for dusting pan

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 350F.  Grease a 9-in spring form pan and dust with cocoa powder, tapping out any excess.  If your spring form pan isn't’ 100% water-tight, wrap the outside with aluminum foil, making sure it goes all the way up to the outer rim.

First I melted the chocolate and the butter over low heat in a medium saucepan.  Continue to stir until you get a smooth mixture. 

So this is what happens when I ask the boyfriend to help me in the kitchen.  Hehe…he had a little bit of fun taking pictures, wouldn’t you say?

While Trevor was melting the chocolate and butter for me, I prepared the egg and sugar mixture. Using an electric hand mixer, beat until nice and frothy.  Then when the chocolate was nice and smooth, I added it to the sugar/egg mixture.  Continue to beat until well mixed.

 

Make sure you also tap your pan a couple of times on the counter to remove possible air bubbles and to level out the batter.

Cover the top of the pan snugly with a sheet of foil and place into a larger baking dish, such as a roasting pan.  Then I added enough hot water to baking pan to come halfway up outside of the cake pan. 

I baked it for 75 minutes.  The cake is done when it feels just set, like chocolate pudding.  If you touch center gently with your finger, it should come away clean.  Lift cake pan from water bath and remove the foil.  Let the cake cool completely on a cooling rack before serving.