I love you day ♥

What's your Valentine's story?

This morning I woke up to post-it notes all over the kitchen, bathroom, living room and everywhere else I looked. Each one had a sweet message written to me about why I was loved ♥ It eventually led me to a card and Valentine's hedgehog stuffie holding a heart! I felt very special and loved today ♥

For my boys I decided to make some raw chocolates, which I have not made in quite some time. You can find the recipe I used for the chocolate here. The chocolate really works well in the molds and it does not take long before they are done setting. This time around I wanted to do something a little different, so I decided to try out different fillings.



~Chocolate Strawberry Smooches
~Chocolate Almond Kissables
~Chocolate Peanut Butter Love Bites


I basically poured a little bit of chocolate into each plastic mold, covering the sides and then threw it in the freezer. Once the chocolate hardened I spooned in a bit of whatever filling and back into the freezer it went. After a few minutes I pulled the chocolates out of the freezer and poured more chocolate on top of the filling to eventually fill the mold.

<---Here is the Chocolate Peanut Butter Love Bites ready for more chocolate to be poured on top! Each chocolate surrounds a whole natural raw almond
Chocolate covering a strawberry puree filling (To make the filling whip 4-5 strawberries in a food processor till they are a saucy consistency)
Chocolate cups with a natural raw peanut butter filling

You may have noticed the Coconut, almond and date mix in the ingredients photo, this was used for the truffles. I couldn't resist making truffles...rich, soft and delicious!


This recipe is basically the same as the one above, I just add about 1/2 cup more cacao powder. This seems to give it a thicker consistency, perfect for rolling out truffles.
Step 1: Tablespoon of Truffle Mix
Step 2: Almond Filling
Step 3: Roll into a Truffle
Step 4: Cover in a Coconut, Almond and Date Mix
The finale, a few pieces of each in a heart shape container for my sweethearts ♥

Chocolate Mishaps and Pasta Goodness

(Tonight's dinner: Zucchini-Pineapple Pasta)
Sometimes not following a recipe and just going with whatever flavors you think will compliment each other turns out to be a delicious meal. There have been times where I've added too many of one ingredient or flavors that just weren't meant to be. When I make those kind of mistakes (lets call them that) I try to mend them by either adding a few more ingredients or creating a different dish with my mistake. I'm not a fan of wasting food and to be honest I can't afford to waste food, who can!?

Tonight's dessert was created due to a "mistake." I made a mistake while un-baking this chocolate treat. I ended up adding too much raw honey, which overpowered the flavor and made it lose it's truffle like texture. Instead of feeling disappointed, since the ingredients for this recipe are not cheap, I tried to work with what I had. Feast you eyes on....

(Tonight's Dessert: Oreo-Brownie Ice cream)
In a food processor, I added a couple frozen bananas and a few little pieces of my chocolate mistakes. Blended it until ice cream consistency and threw on a few crumbles of chocolate to top it off. It was a delicious, rich, chocolaty dessert! It reminded me of oreo ice cream with chunks of brownie mixed in, hence it's name. I'm just happy something delicious came out of a potential "waste" of raw chocolate goodness.

Even though I had some bad luck this afternoon with the chocolate, tonight I made one of the best dinner's I've ever had. Go figure :) Tonight's dinner had four easy components...

1. Pasta Noodles
1-2 cups of spiralized zucchini (you can use squash, carrot, or whatever you prefer)

2. Marinara Sauce (A recipe that I have memorized from "Raw Food Made Easy" by Jennifer Cornbleet.)

1 ripe tomato

1 red bell pepper

1/2 cup of sundried tomatoes

2 Tbsp Olive Oil
1 clove garlic (optional, if you sensitive to raw garlic)

1 tsp of dried Oregano

1 tbsp of fresh Basil (I used dried basil)

Blend everything together in a food processor until it creates a nice sauce.

3. Veggie toppings

I used a handful of...Mushrooms, kale, carrots, green onions, and sundried tomatoes.

Basically take whatever veggies you have on hand that you enjoy on pasta and throw them in the food processor. Pulse a few times, but don't go to far that it becomes watery. You want a diced consistency.

4. Pineapple Marinade
This totally made the dish. Cut up chunks of pineapple, squeeze half a lime, add salt and pepper. Mix together all in a bowl!

Assemble the dish in layers like in my photos or blend it altogether. I blended my dish together after eating about half of it and oh my it was even better! The pineapple's citrus flavor with the sauce is so amazing.
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I guess what I learned from being in the kitchen today was to not lose hope. A culinary mistake can turn into something new and wonderful :) Oh and I rock at making raw pasta dishes!

Enjoy your eats!

~Maggie

Chocolate Indulgence

Last night we decided to explore the world of raw chocolate desserts. I came across this recipe when I was looking at some raw food websites. The pictures looked pretty delicious and I wanted to "unbake" with ingredients I had never tried before. The recipe for this is online here, but I'll post the directions on living food junkie because I found the instructions were missing a few steps, plus I substituted some ingredients with what I had in the pantry :)

Ingredients:
1 cup raw chopped nuts (I used pecans)
1/4 teaspoon cayenne powder (optional)
1/3 cup cold-pressed coconut oil
1/2 cup raw Cacao butter (expensive ingredient)
1/3 cup Goji Berries
1.5 cups raw Cacao powder
1/4 cup raw honey (the original recipe called for more, but I found it to be way too much. I plan on omitting this ingredient next time.)
1/2 cup Agave
a good dash of quality salt
1 vanilla bean

Mix the nuts and the cayenne powder in a bowl. Set aside.

In a double boiler melt the coconut oil. Remove from heat as soon as it melts. Pour it in the bowl with the nuts. Melt the cacao butter in the double boiler. Remove from heat as soon as it melts and pour in bowl with the nuts. The low heat from the double boiler is to just liquefy the oils not to cook them.

Then add the goji berries, cacao powder, honey, agave, salt and vanilla bean to the nut mixture. Stir everything together and than place in a ceramic dish. It's best to put some parchment paper in the dish before hand because the mixture is quite thick and sticky. Place it in the fridge. It sets very quickly, we ate some about 30 minutes later. Cut the truffles into little squares and enjoy!
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The texture is like a smooth truffle, but also has a nice crunch with the bits of nuts mixed within. The flavor of the chocolate is dark and rich. The cayenne is in the after taste of the truffle, so it leaves you with a bit of heat in your throat. My guy said to leave the cayenne out of the recipe next time so he can eat these faster :) I think these would make a great little gift idea around Christmas time, or if you are having a party/get together with friends :)
~Maggie