VALENTINES SPECIAL: 4 RECIPES TO MELT YOUR HEART

If you hadn't already clued on, yep, it's Valentines Day tomorrow. Whether you believe/participate/love or hate it, I see it as an excuse to eat more chocolate than usual and snuggle up on the couch with a good movie and my gorgeous man. Go all out or not at all... we can all have a little more chocolate in our lives now can't we? And after this post stating chocolate can actually help with weight loss... why not?

Mocha-Chip Smoothie

I thought I'd share something a little more tasty than our last poo talks here and here this time around.
I've got my delicious Mocha-Chip Smoothie recipe for you.

I'm not sure if I've made mention or not here before but I am partial to a (damn) good double espresso. No milk. No sugar. Nothing. If it's good coffee... mmmm it's BLISS. I put it down to my barista-ing for 8yrs that I have a bit of a snobbery when it comes to good coffee - but with good reason in my opinion. Why pay for something if you're not going to enjoy it right?

Anyway... it's not a daily ritual for me, as it is for some. It's not even a weekly one. I go through periods where I don't want it for months on end, and then I want it twice in two days. For me, I do notice though if I have coffee everyday, it affects my adrenals and before i know it, I'm tired, lethargic, stroppy, cranky, I have no energy... the list goes on. Maybe it's due to all those coffee's I drank daily behind the machine I don't know?

I find my adrenals are the first thing to go when I'm not looking after myself so I have to watch my intake of this oh-so-delicious beverage enjoyed my millions daily worldwide.

So, I came up with a sneaky alternative for when I really want my (two) shots, but know it's not in my best interest -

Mocha-Chip Smoothie

4 1/2 small bananas (I ate half in the process)
1 cup water
2 heaped teaspoons of cacao powder
8 organic coffee beans
3 fresh dates
2 tablespoons of cacao nibs
drop or two of vanilla


Blend everything except the cacao nibs until smooth. Then add the nibs and pulse once or twice more. Doing it this way ensures the coffee beans have been pulverised a fair bit, but you still get your cacao crunchies.


If you've got a cupboard full of superfoods, other add-ins I love include (1 tsp) acai, (1/4 tsp) pau d'arco, (1/8 tsp) licorice root, even goji berries.

If it's hot where you are, use frozen bananas! If it's cold (like Sydney at the moment - OH MY GOD!), use warm water to warm them bones. If you want less banana's you can easily do that also. I had this smoothie this morning after a run and was starving!

So delicious this one is, and in comparison to a double shot espresso (using god knows how many hundreds of beans), this recipe only uses 8 teeny tiny baby ones! But the coffee flavour is sure there!

Enjoy!!  :)

Hot Choccie to warm them bones

Alright fellow Sydney-siders (and anyone else anywhere in the world where it has been ridiculously cold out of the blue for no good reason)... thanks to my gorgeous girlfriend Bianca, I've got a yummy scrummy hot choccie recipe to share with you all next time that chill hits!

I don't know about you but I have not been able to concentrate on my studies I've been so cold. Trakkie-daks, hoodies, fluffy socks, slippers, scarfs, non-stop pots of tea... I've done the lot! But when I saw taste-bud-tantalising pic, I instantly felt warmer. There's something about hot choocie I think. Just those words;    

      h o t   c h o c c i e

It seems to remind everyone of childhood. Memories of winters at home with the family, or on school camps, maybe the walk to school was a hot choccie time. Whatever the reasons and memories, they always seem to invoke warmth, yummy-scrummy-cuddle-time, and an all-round sense of wellbeing. Who would have thought; Chocolate?

Everyone!

Hot Cacao with Almond Mylk

2 cups of homemade almond mylk*
3 teaspoons of raw cacao powder
1 teaspoon of mesquite powder
1 teaspoon of agave
a dash of cinnamon

First up set aside 2 Tbsp of almond mylk (you'll see why). Put everything else in a pot on the stove and heat on low heat (do not boil) stirring it slowly... once it's the temperature you're happy with, pour into your favourite mug and serve with a swizzel of fresh almond mylk (to make the heart!) and a dash of cinnamon ...that makes hot cacao for two ..

Served with a coconut chia pudding, sliced bananas, coconut flakes and a few dates

 * I've got a recipe for brazil nut milk here, but you can easily substitute amlonds instead. Or use whatever you've got. Almond is nice as it's a subtle flavour, but sesame milk is divine, brazil nut is one of my fav's, or I dare you to try hazelnut milk ... hello Ferror Rocher!!

Carrot Juice with Chocolate

I could say I went slightly carrot-mad last week, but I felt like my body was craving the orange beauties so I kinda went along with it. I was having between 500ml and 1L of fresh carrot juice everyday as an experiement to see how my skin conditions would fare having read so much on carrot juice recently (check out a blog post I did for the Raw Divas here). My skin didn't turn orange but my acne looks better :)

And with left over pulp from juicing so much I also made a big batch my my favourite carrot soup, and my favourite carrot falafels of Gena's you can find here, but never got 'round to making these delicious individual carrot cakes here. Another week perhaps coz you can freeze vegie pulp until you've got enough for what you want - or until you've got time to get in the kitch again!

If I can tune in and listen to what my body wants I'll run with it - so when it was screaming CARROT JUICE, that's what I did. And I feel amazing from drinking it! The only problem I have is when my body feels like chocolate - alot of chocolate - then I'm not so sure if my body is telling me the truth or playing little white lies :)

So with Easter just around the corner I've spent the last 2 days mucking around in the kitchen trying to make some choccies. I had a couple of recipes to try and a whole load of different ingredients to experiment with I was like a little kid in a lolly shop full of exciement!

So what was the outcome? Well let's start with the question "What did I learn?"
To trust in my own abilities more that's what. To not put all your eggs in one basket (no pun intended), and to make sure whatever happens when you're in the kitchen, remember to LAUGH!

Why? Because even when I followed each recipe they both turned out horrible! One tasted disgusting. One wouldn't mix properly...

Then I had problems where my chocolate wouldn't come out of the moulds (more than once which really did my head in). I mixed the ingredients too much in the second lot which made my once glossy silky mixture turn kinda chewy and thick ...

and ontop of that going wrong I was thinking about the deadlines I had for other things going on in my life, college work, packing that I still had to do to go away, and the house was a mess... ARGH! I felt like I was wasting time TRYING to be the Easter Bunny and make yummy choccies but it wasn't working!

It's been a stressful last couple of days (with a head cold trying to rear its ugly head at the same time but I'm not letting it) but I have now made my choccies!

And you know what? It was the laughter that made the biggest difference! That and deciding to poo-poo the recipes I had and come up with my own. TRUSTING in my own abilities and you know what? The best tasting ones are the ones I came up with myself! They were the smoothest, silkiest, easiest to work with look amazing!

Easiest Tastiest Choccie Recipe Ever!

1/2 cup coconut oil
1 cup cacao powder
25ml maple syrup
1/8 cup cacao butter, melted (you can omit this)


Melt the coconut oil and cacao butter down then slowly whisk in the cacao powder and maple syrup (or any other sweetener you like - by the time I got to this recipe after mucking up so many others, maple syrup was pretty much all I had left but it does give a beauiful depth to the flavour).


Pour your choccie into moulds or into a container to cut up into pieces or squares later on.

You can add anything you like to these too. Be creative! Nuts, seeds, goji berries, bee pollen, buckwheat crunchies... I also made a bunch with a few drops of peppermint oil for a minty surprise!
The hardest part of waiting for them to set!

(Another super easy recipe that also worked amazingly well and tasted sensational - if you can get your hands on CACAO LIQUER, melt that down and add sweetener to taste. That's it. And it sets at room temperature. The taste is incredible! I ran outta that stuff real quick!)

This recipe is so damn easy coz alot of people would have coconut oil in the panrty, but not alot of people have cacao butter lying around. And to be honest with you - as I am yet to perfect a chocolate recipe using predominantly cacao butter, coz I just don't like the taste of it! At all. So I need to find a ratio where I do. Where as coconut oil - now you're talking! The only down side is that they can't be kept at room temperature or they'll likely melt. Cacao butter wouldn't. But the health benefits of coconut oil versus those of cacao butter - ENDLESS (and you can read a little here) !!

So when my body craves choccies that I have made from my own recipes with lots of coconut oil, there's good reason and I will listen intently :)

But from tomorrow I'll be goingn away on retreat for 6 days and consuming nothing but GREEN SMOOTHIES which I am SO EXCITED about!! So I wont be doing any blogs for at least a week if not a few days more, but will be sure to SPILL ALL when I get back! Have an awesome long weekend!

And a Happy Happy Easter :)

Chocolate Stuff

Ok so where have I been? Nowhere. Absolutley nowhere.


But I have been making chocolate stuff so that makes up for everything else :)

As I write this up I'm at home whilst the cicadas make noise outside signalling Summer is here! They are my favourite sound. I'm swapping in between Bon Jovi and Michael Buble's Xmas carols, singing along and sipping on a delisciously cool refreshing thai young coconut. YUM!

So I've been working each day as per usual. Finishing up all college work in preparation for Graduation (which has now passed so YAY I've graduated with a Diploma of Transpersonal Life Coaching)... Organising other stuff for my last college weekend. Running around buying and making Xmas pressies. SEEING MUSE AND BON JOVI LIVE!!! Which were both AMAZING by the way... Muse's mosh pit was everything I wished for. Their light show incredible. Sound magical. And they played my ffav songs I was hanging out to hear.
Bon Jovi on the other hand - I can now die a happy girl having heard and participated in Living On A Prayer LIVE in a stadium of 40,000+ people! The grin did not leave my fave from the minute we parked the car until I got home into bed. Long time fan. Loved every second of it!

Matthew Bellamy on piano, Dominic Howard on drums, and Christopher Wolstoneholme on bass guitar.

Matthew Bellamy. Mmm. Doing what he does best.

But back to FOOD STUFF! My blog has suffered from a lack of attention due to my attention being directed everywhere else! But my kitchen hasn't. Although my camera has. Again. So not alot of pretty pics.

The past little while I've been sprouting alfalfa and chickpeas so I've experimented with a raw chickpea hommous that I had wanted to do for a while. Off the top of my head after making cooked hommous for years I threw all this in a food processor:

About 2 cups sprouted chickpeas
2 big tbps tahini
2 cloves of garlic
good pinch of sea salt
tiny drizzle of olive oil
filtered water to get it moving - more or less depending on how you like your hommous

Blend it all until it smells divine and then dunk fresh mushies in and eat asap! Yum!

Brock SURPRISED me with some VEGA Complete Wholefood Health Optimiser which literally made me jump out of my skin with excitement!


I have wanted to get this stuff for soooooo long, and can't get it online, can't get it sent here, and was resulting to getting an American friend to bring some for me when she next came to visit (I'm sure alot of other bloggers down under have wondered how to get their hands on some). So you could imagine my excitement!! I immediatley made myself some with water as the recommendation suggests, but found it to be very sweet so since then I have been throwing it in my smoothies with everything else - bananas, acai, cacao, maca, hemp seeds, protein, etc and I'm loving it!

AND... MAMMEE SAPOTES!! I've been looking forward to these babies since November last year when I tried my very first one. Brock and I were on the lookout whilst up in Darwin (check out the other amzing fruits we had here and here) but found them here when we returned and have been eating them ever since! If you've never had one before and can imagine soft flesh like avocado with a sweet potato/pumpkin pie flavour... that's the best description I can give.


As for the Xmas treats I spoke of last post... well tomorrow I get to throw myself into and take over mum's kitchen for 2 days. I've been looking forward to it for weeks now. KITCHEN FUN! My kitchen is tiny and at mum's there's so much natural sunlight and I can crank the stereo... ooh I'm itching to start!

In the meantime if you want to whip up something really really quick for small pressies, or for yourself, try this STUFF. I made it for some of the peeps I work with who always love my food creations, and they thought it should be called "Christie's Stuff". Enough said apparently. There need be no name as "Christie's Stuff" ,to them, was enough to know it would be amazing. Love those guys.
So, call it Christie's Stuff, or Chocolate Heaven as I first did. I'm not so keen on that name anymore though. Fudgy Goodness perhaps? You guys try it and let me know your suggestions.

So here it is: STUFF

6 tbsp coconut oil
6 tbsp agave syrup
4 tbsp cacao powder

Sieve your cacao powder to get rid of any lumpy bits. Melt your coconut oil, and mix all three ingredients in a medium-sized bowl until well combined (a whisk works well).

This "stuff" is amazing poured ontop of ice cream as it turns into ICE MAGIC! I suppose you could try it on bread like Nutella too. But my fav - eaten straight from the jar. OMG! I once made it with raw honey as I didn't have agave and this works well too although at first it doesn't mix so well. To fix that little problem, set your "stuff' in the fridge and then stir it all later once it's thickened.

So let's hope I'm back up to speed now. College is over. I'm not working for just under 2 weeks. In fact I'm going up the coast with Brock for 10 days after Xmas which will be really good to get away and chill for a bit. Tomorrow starts my 2 days of KITCHEN FUN at mum's place. My sister comes home for 2 days. And then it's XMAS! YAY! I love it!

Merry Christmas guys :)

There's never enough crumble

Ok guys so guess what? It's Vegan MoFo! VEGAN MONTH OF FOOD and over the years it has gotten bigger and BIGGER that countries all over the globe participate and blog about vegan food non-stop, day and night, for the whole month of November (like we don't do that all year round anyways). And I'm UBER excited! I commit to sharing as many simple tasty quick delicioussly VEGAN recipes with you as possible (raw of course - although I'm not totally 100% raw at the moment as I'm experimenting with my digestion and such... another story).

And to start the ball rolling I thought I'd share what I made for Brock's birthday last week (during "Brocktober" as he likes to call it). Now admittedly, it was a simple meal due to a hundred other things I had going on (along with a migrane that day), but a birthday is special, so it had to be special! I think it's cool to also show you guys that raw doesn't always have to be tricky to taste damn good.

Close friends of ours, Mitch and Sheree came over to dine with us, so Sheree and I were whipping up what we could find in the kitchen, while the boys watched gruelling workout videos on YouTube. Go figure.

The Menu:

Crisp carrot sticks drizzled with agave syrup and sprinkled with raisins, coconut and sesame seeds.


Garden fresh crunchy asparagus spears in a flaxseed oil and fresh garlic dressing. OMG.


A melange of greens including fresh kale, assorted lettuces, celery, cucumbers, and avocado, finished with fresh herbs and spices. Along side broccoli florets covered in warm coconut oil and nutritional yeast flakes (can you see these babies hiding in the background?)


...Melange salad topped with pepitas, sunflower seeds, flax oil and a whole squeezed lemon


And then of course DESSERT. I had so many ideas but not wanting to be in the kitchen for hours (with my migrane) and with limited supplies I remembered a box of apples we had in our spare fridge (yes Brock and I need a spare fridge for the amount of fruit and veg we eat).


So my little mind immediatley thought APPLE CRUMBLE! "I've got some nuts, the apples, spices... I'll just go buy raw ice cream this time... get some dates... Easy!" (yep, that's how my little mind ticks)


So I layered some crumble, some apple filling and then some more crumble into individual glasses, then topped them off with big dollops of vanilla ice cream.

We also had some chocolate crackles I had left over from the batch I made for college. Think of them like our "after dinner mints" (only lacking in mint). Our evening was really nice. Sheree and I initially thought to go on a picnic but as the weather turned last week, our little picnic ended up being on our living room floor. But the perfect place to be with a belly full of good food in on your floor at home is it not?

So going on memory here guys, my wham-bam-thankyou-mame-APPLE CRUMBLE recipe is something as follows...

Chop up 2 apples and throw them in the blender (or food processor) with a few medjool dates, a pinch of cinnamon, a pinch of nutmeg, a pinch of salt (trust me it makes the sauce) and a drizzle of water, and blend it all til smooth.

Slice, dice, cube, grate (however you want) 3 or 4 apples. Pour your sauce over these and mix them through well.

For your crumble, pulse equal parts nuts and medjool dates until crumbly.

Then layer as you wish. And ENJOY!

I did crumble first, then apples, then more crumble - coz let's admit, there's never enough crumble!! Bung it in your dehydrator or low heat oven to warm it up a bit, or just never stick it in the fridge once you've made it.

Ice cream to serve (of course) and let your taste buds go nuts!

Snap. Crackle. Pop.

Ok so here it is as promised - the CHOCOLATE CRACKLE RECIPE from Heaven.

It's an adaptation of a recipe I got from an online course I've been doing for almost a year now.

1 cup buckwheat
3/4 cup coconut oil
1 cup coconut
6 tbsp cacao
4 tbsp agave syrup

Soak the buckwheat overnight in a bowl of water (make sure it's well immersed), then rinse it well when you bound out of bed! And dehydrate until it's crunchy (usually about 12hrs; if you don't have a dehydrator you can use your oven on 45 degrees).

Throw all your ingredients into a bowl (like my 'bowl'? Having recently moved house you come to slowly realise what you do and dont have in your kitchen. Note to self; buy a big mixing bowl).

Melt your coconut oil over a hot bowl of water, and then mix all the ingredients together. This is my favourite part. The smell of chocolate starts to take over... the sound of wet and dry ingredients merge making sticky sounds... mmm childhood no?

Once well incorporated, TASTE TEST! I think this is my favourite part! A good cook always taste tests (but make sure you leave some to put into patty pans)!!
If you're taste buds want it sweeter, add more agave. If they want something chewy through it, add some raisins. EXPERIMENT! And then spoon your delicious mixture into little patty pans and refrigerate to set!


(Take to college and watch the girls melt) :)

Easter Treats

I love Easter. Always have. Always will. A celebration of new beginnings, get together's with family and friends, and of course CHOCOLATE!!

However every year I manage to make my mum's job a little tougher; as a child I'd happily gorge on any chocolate, then it had to be Cadbury eggs, then only dark chocolate, then milk free, then completley dairy free, at one point only carob, then no chocolate - only vegan lollies, then lollies with no red colourings, and now only 100% RAW CHOCOLATE - which you can't buy in pretty little easter egg shapes - BLOCKS ONLY - what a shame ;)

So my Easter Sunday started like this...
a litre of my delicious green smoothie



Then... in keeping to traditions (regardless of age) Mum had set up a trail of clues for me to find my Easter treats. Each clue led to the next, taking me upstairs, back down, round the back, upstairs again, in the kitchen, the office, and back again until I found all my treats!

First surprise, hiding with the beers in the bar fridge (keeping nice and cool) was a blcok of Loving Earth's Organic RAW chocolate...


... Lucuma and Maca - my ABSOLUTE FAVOURITE!!


I also found a block of RAWGANIC's Peppermint Dark Chocolate hiding in the cash register, that I later enjoyed with a mug of peppermint tea.




One thing that I love about RAWGANIC chocolate (in addition to the amazing pleasurable experience of eating the tiny rich pieces one by one) are the beautiful little sayings inside each wrapper...

"To do something, however small, to make others happier and better, is the higest ambition, the most elevating hope, which can inspire a human being" - John Lubbock


I blissed out on a beautiful little MANGOSTEEN that was my gift from Brock and it was AMAZING! It was the first time I had ever had one of these little beauties and I LOVED IT!

And then... there was of course KITCHEN FUN!! Here's some pics to entice you all ;)

Super Love Treats!! These babies are a slight variation of these ones from Megan Telpner (a favourite blogger of mine)


Banana Walnut Muffins... ooey, gooey, little round balls of sweet delicious goodness, topped with a banana slice, a drop of agave, and a walnut!




And looking pretty all boxed up... SuperLove Treats, Banana Walnut Muffins, Co's Super Super Balls (with added spirulina for a difference) and Power Balls



Hope you all had a HAPPY EASTER!