Semi-raw chocolate mousse

I experimented a bit in the kitchen yesterday, and the Saturday night treat we ended up with was a semi-raw chocolate mousse. Here's the recipe!

SEMI-RAW CHOCOLATE MOUSSE

1 tin coconut cream (Kara for preference)
Raw cocoa powder to taste
1 tbsp carob powder (or use more cocoa if you don't have carob)
Sweeteners of choice (I used 2 tsp yacon syrup, 1 tsp yacon powder and a dash of agave nectar)
1 tsp maca powder (may easily be skipped if you don't have or don't like)

Gently melt/heat the coconut cream. If you want to keep this as raw as possible, keep the temperature at under 40 C. When the coconut cream is liquid, add the rest of the ingredients and whisk until the mixture is smooth. Then pour into a serving dish and leave to cool a bit before you refrigerate. Leave for a few hours to set.

Giveaway!

(I'll do this post in Norwegian, for convenience.)



Giveaway hos Superlivsstil! Du kan vinne ingredienser til rå sjokolade (som det neppe er noen hemmelighet at jeg har fått sansen for) fra Økosjokolade.no. Jeg har handlet derfra flere ganger selv, og både nettbutikken og produktene deres (som fås i mange helsekostforretninger etc) er supre!

Nut bars with raw chocolate topping

I've been missing granola bars. They're quite brilliant when it's a bit too long until your next meal. However, my old recipe was chuck-full of sugar and not all that healthy. So today I just did it!

NUT BARS

2 dl raw cashews
1 dl raw peanuts
1 dl raw Brazil nuts (paranuts)
1 dl dessicated coconut
0,75-1 dl flax seeds
A handfull sunflower kernels

3 tbsp virgin coconut oil
3 tbsp organic peanut butter (I used the creamy variety)
12 drops SweetLeaf Liquid Stevia with Vanilla Crème flavour
Agave nectar to taste (or other sweeteners)

Roast the nuts lightly. (This step can be skipped if you want raw bars. I'm allergic to many nuts unless they're heat treated.) I also added the coconut towards the end of the roasting process.



Then pulse the nuts in a food processor. That should leave you with something looking like this:



Now mix coconut oil, peanut butter and sweeteners. You may need to place your bowl in a bain-marie to get a smooth mixture.



Pour into the crushed nuts and coconut, then mix.



Press into a pan and refrigerate.



Make raw chocolate as you like it, or melt dark chocolate (70-85% cocoa solids) with a bit of coconut oil and sweeteners of your choice. Pour over the refrigerated nut mixture and leave to set. Then cut into bars or squares. Voila!



(By the time I took the last picture my husband had already run off with a bar. He likes them.)

Christmas sweets

No, I haven't started making them quite yet. But I'm making plans! These are some of the sweets I want to try making this year:

- Candied orange slices
- Raw chocolate with coconut-peanut filling
- Raw chocalte with mint filling
- These (give me a shout if translation is needed)
- Homemade marzipan with raw chocolate coating
- Toffee with "polkagris"

Kale and roast veg lasagne

Today's dinner was a rather successful veggie lasagne. Relatively quick to make, too, as I roast the vegetables last night. It tasted nice and creamy, and had a bit of kick.

KALE & ROAST VEG LASAGNE

1 onion, sliced
2 cloves of garlic, sliced
1 large aubergine, roughly diced
1 courgette, sliced
A few mushrooms, quartered
1 red pepper, roughly diced
6-8 tomatoes, halved or quartered depending on size

Place in a greased ovenproof dish and drizzle with olive oil, dried chili, oregano, a bit of pepper, flake salt and a pinch of sugar. Roast for about 40 mins on 200C.

Kale
Lasagne sheets
Passata
1 tub of crème fraîche
Parmesan

In the meantime, rinse and shred kale. I used 6 large leaves. Grease a lasagne dish. Find lasagne sheets (I used fresh, I would pre-cook dried ones) and crème fraîche. Grate parmesan cheese.

When the roast veg are ready, layer like this in the lasagne dish: Kale, roast veg, a bit of passata, a few dollops of crème fraîche, lasagne sheets. Finish with crème fraîche and parmesan. Place back in the oven for another 15-20 mins.

Mmmmm... Raw chocolate with peanut butter filling

I'm trying to cut back on sugar, and am thus making chocolate myself. Sweetened with agave nectar, yacon syrup and Sukrin (erythritol). Today I filled my chocolates with peanut butter mixed with a bit of virgin coconut oil and yacon syrup, in order to avoid the "dryness" of pure peanut butter. And it turned out to be an excellent combination!

My raw chocolate recipe at the moment is as follows:

3-4 tbsp cacao butter
1 large tbsp virgin coconut oil
1 large tsp yacon syrup
1 large tsp agave nectar
3 tsp powdered Sukrin
Approx. 3 tbsp raw cacao powder
A pinch of salt
A pinch of vanilla powder

For the filling I simply mixed 3 tbsp home made peanut butter (place peanuts in a blender with a few tbsp peanut oil, a pinch of salt and some sort of sweetener if you like it sweetened) with about a tablespoon coconut oil (melted) and a large teaspoon yacon syrup.

Laundry room

We've been hanging shelves lately. In the laundry room and in the storage room in the basement. And thus we've created two functional rooms, albeit not very pretty. A huge improvement from the messy piles that were there before. The pictures are from the laundry room. The storage room is not very photogenic.

Little penguin

It only took a year... I started this penguin suit in size 1 year in September 2009. Now, in September 2010, I finally finished it, in size 2 years. It fits my girl perfectly, and is so cute!