Sorry to have been gone for a bit! Life has been abundantly busy here in the Vivapura aWarehouse. Lots of orders to ship, lots of product to bag and lots of beautiful customers to converse with on the phone. That has left very little time for recipe development or blogging. I decided to start up again with a beautiful recipe just in time for Valentine’s Day. Also, if you would like to get some cacao ingredients to make chocolate at home we have a coupon available for web orders. Order any cacao product (nibs, powder, paste or butter) from our site and use coupon code “cacao20″ for 20% off your cacao purchases!

I made these little heart chocolates a few weeks ago, inspired by my new silicon heart ice cube tray and curious about some sweetener a friend had dropped off for me to try, Palm Sugar. I’ve heard lots about Palm Sugar but have yet had a chance to use it. It worked ok in this recipe but I never could get it to really dissolve in the chocolate so it left a crispy sort of texture. I was a bit distracted by it but all of my taste testers were raving about these so I decided to share them anyway. You could play around with other sweeteners as well.

Chocolate Hearts with Super Berry Filling

1 cup strawberries, chopped
6 drops Valencia Orange Stevia

Place both ingredients into a high-speed blend and blend until smooth. Leaving the puree in the blender add the following:
1/4 cup Barberries
1/4 cup Goji Berries

Stir these into the puree in your blender and allow to soak for 15 minutes. Blend again until puree is mostly smooth but some texture remaining.

2 cups Cacao Paste
1/2 cup palm sugar
1 tsp. Cacao Paste
1 tsp. Super Maca
1/4 cup Coconut Oil
pinch mineral rich salt

Fill a bowl or pan with boiling water, find another bowl or pan that sits on top of the bowl filled with boiling water. Place cacao paste in the top bowl and stir until it melts. If your water cools too much you may desire to add more hot water to the bottom bowl. Once the cacao paste is melted add each of the other ingredients one by one until everything is well-combined.

You can use chocolate molds, silicon baking or ice cube trays or a baking dish. You want to use half of your chocolate in whatever sort of mold you are using. Swirling it around the edges ever so slightly so there is a bit of a coating around the edges. Place your mold in the freezer and allow it to set until firm.

Next your are going to spread the Super Berry Filling on the first layer of chocolate.

Make sure to not spread the filling right to the very edge of the chocolate layer, this will ensure that the filling becomes totally enclosed. Also, be sure to keep the filling as low profile as possible so that the top layer of chocolate can fit. You may have leftover filling (it tastes great added to smoothies, used in cakes or spread on any sort of bread).

Finally, cover the filling with your additional chocolate. Trying carefully to cover the filling so that none peaks out. If you choose to garnish your chocolates be sure to do that now. I used Barberries on mine.

Now allow the chocolates to set once more. Once they have hardened you need not store them in the freezer, they will keep fine in the refrigerator. Since the filling uses some fresh fruit be sure to not let them sit more than a week or so before gobbling them up. Who am I kidding? These couldn’t last a week in anyone’s refrigerator before being gobbled up!

When I prepared this recipe I also added a mashed potato-like recipe from Matthew Kenney’s book Everday Raw. It was a nice addition.

Pecan & Mushroom Stuffed Chard Rolls

Mushrooms:
12 oz. baby portobello mushrooms, caps & stems sliced
4 twigs fresh rosemary, “leaves” removed & minced
1 lemon, juiced
1 tsp. mineral rich salt
1/2 tsp. onion powder
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 cup olive oil

Place all ingredients in a bowl & toss well. Allow to marinate for at least 30 minutes, tossing occasionally. Place marinated mushrooms on a teflex sheet and dehydrate for 3-6 hours.

Pecan Stuffing
2 cups Pecan Pieces
2 cloves garlic
4 twigs fresh rosemary, twigs removed & discarded
1/2 tbs. dried thyme
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 tsp salt
1 bunch parsley, roughly chopped

Place all ingredients into container of a food processor. Pulse until well-combined and a crumbly, stuffing-like consistency is achieved.

Cranberry Chutney

8 oz. fresh cranberries
2 oranges, peeled & chopped
1/2 tbs. Vanilla Powder
1/3 cup apple pulp, leftover from juicing
1 tbs. raw honey or other liquid sweetener
pinch salt

Place all ingredients into a food processor container. Pulse until well combined but still with some texture.

Assembly:
1 bunch chard, washed & de-stemmed
Dehydrated Mushrooms
Pecan Stuffing
Cranberry Chutney

Take a half of a chard leaf and place a small pile of pecan stuffing, a spoonful of cranberry chutney and a sprinkling of dehydrated mushrooms on the top third of the leaf. Roll the leaf carefully around the filling. Do this until you run out of filling.

I digress, tonight I’m sharing the recipe that I made with the leftover pumpkin pulp from the Pumpkin Cheesecake. Having had two meal invitations that day it worked well to have two related desserts. If I had really been multitasking I would have made a double batch of the topping for the cheesecake and used some of it in the trifle. Instead I created a lighter cream that features Jarrah Bee Pollen.

Pumpkin Pear Trifle with Jarrah Creme

Crumble:
2 cups packed pumpkin pulp (leftover from juicing)
1/3 cup Cocopura Coconut Oil
1/3 raw honey or other liquid sweetener
1/4 cup Coconut Flour
1 tsp. Vanilla Powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
pinch of salt
1/2 cup Pecan pieces

Combine all ingredients except pecans in a food processor, process until well-combined. Add pecans and pulse until well combined. Take mixture and crumble it onto a teflex sheet. Dough should be around bite sized pieces. Dry in dehydrator until quite dry, soe moistness is the middle is nice but the outside should be dry. This will take between 6 and 12 hours.

Jarrah Creme
1 1/2 cup coconut milk (made from thai young coconuts or Coconut Flakes)
1/4 cup raw honey or other liquid sweetener
1 lemon, juiced
1 cup macadamia nuts
1/2 tbs Vanilla Powder
1/2 cup Coconut Oil
2 tbs. Jarrah Bee Polle
pinch mineral rich salt

Add all ingredients into a high-speed blender and blend until smooth. Allow to set in freezer while you assemble the rest of the trifle.

Assembly
6 extremely ripe D’Anjou pears; peeled, quartered & sliced
1 lemon, juiced
1/2 tbs. Vanilla Powder
Pumpkin crumble
Jarrah Creme

Combine pear slices, lemon juice and vanilla powder and toss gently in a bowl.

In a small trifle bowl place 1/2 of the pear mixture along the bottom. Add half of the pumpkin mixture next and then half of the creme. Repeat this order with the remaining ingredients. Allow the mixture to sit for a few hours in the refrigerator at least for the layers to settle together.

Wednesdays Blog: Mushroom & Pecan Stuffed Chard Rolls

I attended not one but two Thanksgiving gatherings last week and I brought this to the more “traditional” of the gatherings. I did partake of some heavenly fire roasted yams but the bulk of my meal was a lovely raw onion bread topped with a lovely kale salad and a hefty dollop of this sauce. One of my hosts declared, “This tastes like SweetTarts!” after she tasted the sauce.

Anyhow, my point is, don’t relegate this cranberry sauce to your thanksgiving table. Happily enjoy it throughout the cranberry season!

Goji Cranberry Sauce

2 tbs. Irish Moss, powdered
1/2 cup of water
1 cup goji berries
1 1/2 cups fresh squeezed orange juice
12 oz. fresh cranberries
1/2 tsp. Vanilla Powder
1 2″ knob ginger, grated
stevia to taste (orange flavored works nicely)

Combine Irish Moss Powder & water and set aside. Soak goji berries in orange juice for 5 minutes. Combine Irish Moss mixture, gojis & juice with remaining ingredients in a high powered blender. Blend on high until smooth. Store in a glass jar and allow to thicken over night.

This will not “gel” like a traditional cranberry sauce. It will be a thick but pour-able consistency. Delicious with raw, wilted greens.

Wednesdays blog: Raw Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies