Chocolate milk, Pumpkin Pie, and Grawnola

I love chocolate milk. Ever since I was a little kid I've loved stirring Hershey's syrup into a tall, cool glass of milk. Obviously, being raw, I can have neither Hershey's syrup nor milk. But I can still have my raw chocolate milk, and in my opinion it's better than the original! There's a couple ways to make this.

Chocolate Almond Milk (all measurements are "to taste." I never measure with things like this)

Almond milk

Raw cocoa powder

Agave

Ice (if you like it really cold)

Put all these things in a blender, blend and enjoy!

Hemp Seed Chocolate "Mylk"

Water

Hemp seeds

Raw cocoa powder

Agave

Ice

Blend and think how amazing it is.

Hemp seeds are an amazing protein. I love them on salads, in soups, dips, and of course, mylk! We make this drink a lot at the clinic. The other day the doctor also added cayenne pepper and cinnamon. Oh. my. gosh. Like a milkgasm.

I made this Chocolate Almond Milk the other day. So good. With store bought almond milk it's super creamy; with homemade it's a little more watery, but still amazing.

Pumpkin Pie

I've been craving pumpkin pie. It is my absolute favorite dish on the Thanksgiving table. I think about it all year long, and figured I just couldn't wait! So yesterday was a busy day. Besides my lasagna, I made this "pumpkin" pie that was made with organic garnet yams (since I couldn't find pumpkin or sweet potatoes). It turned out ok. Not super smooth. I think maybe more coconut oil and avocados would have done the trick, but I have such a tiny food processor I had to do two batches as it was. I made an amazing pecan date crust that turned out excellent. I don't have much of a recipe but here it is:

Crust (taken from rawfoodswitch.com)

2 cups pecans

1/2 cup soaked dates or figs

Filling

2-3 yams, cubed (or 4-5 c of sweet potato or pumpkin when they're in season)

1.5 cup soaked dates or figs (only did one, but could have used .5 more)

2 avocados (only tried with one; it may need more)

Agave

2 tsp coconut oil

3 tsp Cinnamon

1 tsp Ginger

2 tsp Nutmeg

1 tsp Vanilla

Water or almond milk to help get it moving

First process the yams in a food processor, then add everything and keep going until it's nice and smooth and creamy. All spices are to taste.

Mine was not super sweet, but with the crust it was just perfect! I add a little, blend, taste, then add a little more if necessary. If you guys make this or something similar please let me know what you did and if it turned out better!

Grawnola

My last thing for today will be grawnola! I love granola cereal and bars so much that I didn't think I could give them up. Luckily there's some smart cookies in the world that developed grawnola. There's tons of recipes out there, but this is one of the easiest I've found. I got it from a great blog, Raw Food Passion. April develops most of her own recipes. Very impressive.

Grawnola

2 cups of flax seeds
1 cup of water
3 cups of dried coconut
1 cup of dates
4 tablespoons of honey
1 tablespoon of cinnamon

* First soak the flax seeds in one cup of water for about thirty minutes. Next put the dried coconut into the food processor and process until very fine. Cut up the dates fine and then add them to the food processor and process until fine. Mix the Flax seeds with the coconut and date combo and then stir in the honey and cinnamon making sure everything is mixed together very well. Finally spread the mixture out on the dehydrator trays (about 1/2 inch thickness) and set the dehydrator to 115 degrees. Leave the granola in the dehydrator for about 12 hours or until crisp. Then, just break pieces apart.

So good alone, but also great with almond (or any other nut) milk!

Fresh out of the dehydrator yesterday! I have to get my own Excalibur...

That's it for today, boys and girls. I have so many recipes stored up I need to start posting more of them, but I'd hate to overwhelm you all. Let me know if you have any questions!