Raw Chocolate: Attempt 1

The dining hall finally has spinach...hallelujah! I love spinach more than any other green, leafy vegetable and when there's a shortage... : ( For lunch and dinner I had a lovely spinach salad with some artichoke hearts and red cabbage slaw (it's always the luck of the draw as to what "special salads" they have down there) and a side bowl of melon. Yum.

Last night I attempted to make raw chocolate, til I realized that my cacao nibs weren't going to grind up into a fine powder. So I decided to go with carob powder instead. I mixed about a tablespoon of coconut oil in a semi-solid state with a teaspoon or so of raw agave and a tablespoon of carob powder. As I was mixing it, it sort of formed this giant, squishy ball. Not at all like the liquidy chocolate I was expecting to freeze. So I put it over my radiator to warm it up a bit, thinking that it would melt the coconut oil and make the whole concoction more liquidy. Um, no. It remained a squishy ball, only now it was a little oily around the edges. So I decided to add more carob powder. That was not so great of an idea either, as it clumped up. Exasperated, I threw in some dehydrated coconut flakes, put the thing in the freezer, and called it a day.

This morning, when I woke up, I ran to the freezer and found this:

Not that appetizing, but it was very tasty. It reminded me of the "cookies" part of "cookies-n-cream" ice cream. I got all excited and immediately started planning how to make raw cookies-n-cream ice cream when I get home in...3 months. Bummer.

To satisfy my chocolate-y cravings (since the raw chocolate thing obviously didn't work out as planned), I decided to make carob chia pudding. Except this time I was determined to make it less like tapioca pudding. So I took a long shot and attempted to grind the chia seeds into somewhat of a powder, then mixed in almond milk (unfortunately, from a box and not raw), agave, and carob powder. And guess what? It worked! It wasn't all that chocolate-y (it could have stood to have a little more carob), but it wasn't like tapioca at all. It had a much better texture, and the little chia seeds still worked their magic to thicken the concoction up. This is not a great picture, but you get the idea:

It was pretty tasty.

I am still on the quest to make raw chocolate. This week will be pretty busy, so we'll see...