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!

Scandinavian style wholemeal waffles

Being home with a feverish child, I wanted something yummy for lunch. So I finally managed to put together a wholemeal waffle recipe I'm happy with.



WAFFLES

3 eggs
5 tbsp Sukrin (erythritol)
2 dl wholemeal wheat flour
2 dl wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cardamom
approx. 2 dl milk
100 g butter, melted

Beat the eggs and Sukrin until fluffy. Mix in half the flour, the baking powder and the cardamom. Then add half the milk. Repeat with the rest of the flour and milk. Lastly add the melted butter. You should end up with a slightly runny batter. Bake in waffle iron.

Breakfast pancakes

These have become a favourite with us. I make the batter in the evening and leave it in the fridge overnight. That means the bran goes soft, but it still tastes great. I've tried without roasting the bran, but it's not qute the same. The pancakes are also popular in my daughter's daycare lunchbox. I found the recipe on a Norwegian forum a few years back, and hereby translate and share it.

WHOLEMEAL BANANA PANCAKES

2 tbsp honey
80 g oat bran

160 g whole grain rye flour
2,5 tsp baking powder
A good dash of brown flax seeds (I use about a handful)
Cardamom
3 dl water (approx.)
2 tbsp rapeseed oil or other neutral oil
1 (very) ripe banana

Melt the honey over medium heat in a non-stick frying pan, then add the bran. Roast until it smells nutty and turns golden brown.

In the meantime, mix the dry ingredients and mash the banana. Add the bran to the dry mixture and stir well. Add water and oil, and mix until you have a thick batter. Add the banana and mix again.

Fry in a dry non-stick pan without grease.

Living in fear

I haven't really considered the fact that fear is something I struggle with quite a lot. I've just watched the second half of a documentary called "My Breasts Could Kill Me" with Dawn Porter. Her mum died of breast cancer when she was in her thirties, and Dawn had cameras following her as she went through various exams to check her own risk and met cancer pasients, cancer survivors and their next of kin. And it scared me shitless. My gran had breast cancer when she was in her thirties, and though she didn't die from it, she had a mastectomy. Later on she had four (or was it five?) more rounds of cancer as it spread throughout her body. She died when I was 6, and she 62. She had cancer of the brain. Rather a few of her nine siblings have also had various types of cancer. My mum found a breast lump when she too was in her thirties. It turned out to be benign. But still...

The thing is, though I've been aware of my fear of cancer before, it only just hit me today how deep that fear is. I'm absolutely terrified of finding a lump, and thus don't really check myself. Even more so now that I have a child. What would I do if i found something? What if I die? It's probably quite irrational. But I do need to follow in Dawn Porter's footsteps. I need to find out.

Soup for sore throats

Soup is perfect when you have a cold. It slides down easily. Particularly this one, which has a silky smooth texture when blended. It's based on this recipe (in Norwegian), but I made some adjustments, as always. I'm unable to follow a recipe without changing it.

CARROT AND PARSNIP SOUP
500 g carrots
400 g parsnips
1 onion
1 clove of garlic
A good inch of fresh ginger
800 ml vegetable stock
200 ml orange juice
Lemon juice and more ginger to taste

Scrub or peel carrots and parsnips and cut into chunks. Chop onion and garlic, peel ginger. Fry the onion in a bit of oil for at least ten minutes, until it's fragrant. Add a pinch of salt to keep it from browning. Add the garlic and let it fry for a minute or two, then add carrots, parsnips and most of the ginger. Pour over vegetable stock and bring to a boil, then cook for 15 minutes or until the vegetables are cooked through.

Place the soup in a blender and blend until smooth. Place back in the pan and bring it back to a boil. Add orange juice, some more ginger and a bit of lemon to taste.

I made puff pastry cheese swirls on the side. Roll out a sheet of ready-made puff pastry, drizzle one half with finely grated cheddar and press the other half over. Slice into strips and twist them. Bake on 180C for about 10 mins.

Lunch for the poorly

Celery with hummus.

HUMMUS
1 can chickpeas (200 g)
1 large tsp tahini
2 cloves of garlic
2-3 tbsp olive oil
A large splash of lemon juice (about half a lemon)
A pinch of cumin seeds
A pinch of paprika
A bit of salt

Combine the ingredients in a food processor until smooth and creamy. Eat with a celery stick.

Wish list

I'm home with a cold today, and thus have a bit too much time for surfing. So I am making a Christmas wish list for myself! It's nice to be ahead, right? ;)

Christmas wish list

Le Creuset Dutch Oven/French Oven. I'm not quite sure about neither size nor colour, but I quite fancy the orange one. I also want it to be relatively large, so that I'm able to use it for roasts.



Zyliss mandoline. My mum used to have one, and it's really handy. Particularly because I get a rash from handling various starchy raw veg, such as potatoes and carrots.



Harry Potter boxed set. I love, love, love Harry Potter and am also a sucker for proper books. So I like to have my favourites in good quality hardback versions.



Diamond studs... Something like these:



A cashmere/silk pashmina in a particular shade of purple that I've yet to find. Never a good idea to decide what one wants before actually having seen it IRL...

Chocolate banana cupcakes

These are based on Julie Goodwin's Lemon Diva Cupcakes, but with cocoa powder and banana instead of lemon zest.

CUPCAKES
100 g butter
165 g sugar (I use Tate&Lyle caster sugar)
A splash vanilla extract (e.g. Nielsen-Massey)
2 eggs
200 g flour
1,5 tsp baking powder
3-4 tbsp cocoa powder
100 ml milk
2 very ripe bananas, mashed

Beat butter, sugar and vanilla extract. Add the eggs one by one and mix well. Mix flour, baking powder and cocoa, then stir in about half into the egg and butter mixture. Add half the milk, then the rest of the flour mix and the rest of the milk. Lastly stir in the mashed bananas. Divide mixture into lined muffin pan. I got 10 cupcakes out of this recipe. Bake at 180C for 18-20 mins.

ICING
60-70 g chocolate, 70% cocoa solids
25 g butter
2-3 tbsp icing sugar
50-100 ml single cream

Melt chocolate, butter and icing sugar together over low heat, then add cream until the mixture emulsifies. Leave to cool.