And as I had left off yesterday, I promised you all some Chocolate Action, so without further ado… A few weeks ago I went to a friend’s house and rather than showing up empty handed, I decided to make a raw vegan chocolate pie. I’m not gonna lie, I didn’t bring her the whole pie. Whadda ya think I’m nuts? No, like any greedy cook, I saved half of it for our munching pleasure over here, and brought her and her fam the other half. The jumping off point of the crust came from here, but for the filling, well, that was my own concoction entirely. Here’s what I did. I am so sorry I don’t have photos of the process. I musta been zoning out or trying to divert a toddler catastrophe like making sure Barbie’s dress is properly on or else… Crust *2 c raw almonds (or you can use almond meal). Sidebar–I find that TJ’s whole raw almonds grind down into almond meal in about 15 secs flat in the Vita-Mix and oz for oz, they are just as cheap as buying TJ’s almond meal. So, rather than buying almond meal, although it would save me the grinding step, I’d prefer to have the whole raw almonds so I can use them for other things, too. *2 or 3 medjool dates *2-3 Tbsp of coconut oil *Blend all 3 things together in Vita-Mix or food processor, remove, and squish the mixture into a pie plate. You can probably omit the coconut oil or reduce it, if need be. Just eyeball it to make sure you’ve got piecrust-like consistency. Filling *2-3 ripe avocados (depending on how big your pie plate is, 8 vs. 10 or 12 inches, depends on if you use 2 or 3 avos) *Handful of medjools, probably 4-5 or so *1/2 c cocoa powder *Agave to taste, I’d start with about 1/2 c (or try honey, stevia, or other sweetener to your liking) *Optional coconut oil, about 1-2 Tbsp *Optional vanilla extract *Blend and spoon out into your pie crust. *Refrigerate preferably overnight but at least 4 hours. You just want to get it semi cold to set up. Store in fridge. Voila, Raw Vegan Chocolate Pie! For extreme decadence, you could whip up some cashew cream. Cashew cream, aka the Raw Version of Cool-Whip, has been done many times and has appeared in many different vegan and raw cookbooks, but Gena also recently posted her version of cashew cream. Goodbye Cool-Whip, Hello Cashew Cream! Of course, the pie on it’s own is fabulous, or you could always just plunk a spoonful of Cool Whip on there….I won’t tell if you won’t. In recapping some of my other chow, let’s see for my brekky there was the Lonesome Dove, or should I say Lonesome Strawberry, that I ate. Which came from my severely output-challenged strawberry plant that I mentioned before. It’s ok though because the extra-juicy watermelon and blueberries made up for it. For Scott’s brekky, I made him some cooked oats, about 1/3 c dry with 2/3 c almond milk, 1 nanner, cinnamon & brown schug, and a few raisins stirred in. He said this was better than last weekend’s. He says that every weekend. For anyone new, I only make him oatmeal on the weekends, and every weekend he says it gets better and better. By New Year’s I guess the oatmeal will be so good his ears will blow off or something. And let’s see for dinner. Well, just call me a freakin’ short order cook. I made 3 separate dinners. But that’s not really anything new, it’s just that on this particular night I made Scott a nice salad and some gluten and sodium laden ziti and marinara. It was vegetarian, but definitely not something I was interested in. Even before I went GF, pasta just never was my dealio. But it sure is his. My dealio was more along the lines of Sqaush, B.S., cukes & zukes, carrots, orange & yellow peppers. Now we’re talkin’. So here’s my question, for those of you with sig others or kids who don’t necessarily eat exactly the same way you do, how do you manage? Do you cook separately for everyone? Or, do you say, tough shizzle and you’ll eat what’s served or you can starve, my beloved family members? Or do you do what I do, and usually, take one meal and sort of customize certain aspects, based on everyone’s likes and dislikes? Would love to hear how you juggle different tastes and food prefs. Some yoga. Big Air, Big Smile! :) Averie Tip of the Day: Cloth Napkins. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle my friends. I bought a dozen cloth napkins from BB & B for about 10 bucks. And you could get them cheaper from Target or TJ Maxx or someplace like that. But I just throw them in the wash with everything else. I don’t iron them, I don’t try to get every last stain out, but if you pick something other than white, it’s amazing that with very little effort they look decently stain-free. It’s way more economical than using paper towels or paper napkins for everything and it saves the planet. My Go Green speech is officially over now.
