Chocolate Friday: Raw Chocolate Cheesecake!

Oh MY oh my oh my, what a long time it's been between posts... So sorry for my continued absence from the virtual realm. As Kundera said, Life is elsewhere...

Today was the kind of day that inspired a bit of cooking, or should I say, chocolate alchemy. For this is no ordinary cheesecake, this is a completely vegan, wheat-free, raw cheesecake. And what's more, it's not one of your fancy all-you-can-eat cashews affair as (a) I don't believe in making everything with nuts and (b) I'm not that keen on them in the first place. Oh, and (c) there were none in the cupboard and this was the kind of day that I just HAD to make something out of what was in my cupboard!

And it had to be good, oh so good. And chocolatey. Very much so.

So here we are - tada! I literally threw this together and everything is approximate measures, so please feel free to be equally lax and experimental :)

Base
3/4 cup whole almonds, finely ground (or, if you want to be totally nut-free, try using coconut)
3/4 cup buckwheaties, roughly ground
2 tbsp cacao powder
1 tbsp maca powder (optional)
1/4 cup rapadura sugar, ground finely or about 2 tbsp xylitol - or whatever you prefer
Tiny pinch crystal salt
1/2 cup cacao butter, melted

Mix all the dry ingredients together then add in the cacao butter to make a dough, and press firmly into the base of a springform flan case. Chill in the fridge while you make the filling.

Filling
1/2 cup chia seeds, just covered in water
Juice of 1 orange
1/2 cup dried coconut, finely ground
1/2 banana
1/2 cup cacao powder
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 tbsp agave syrup

Add the orange juice to the wet chia seeds and mix well. Leave to soak for about an hour. Then liquidise the banana, chia mixture and coconut till smooth. Finally add the cacao, vanilla and agave and process till completely incorporated. Spoon over chilled base and return to the fridge to set.

Topping
1/2 cup coconut oil, melted
1/2 cup cacao powder
2 tbsp agave syrup

Mix all together well and spoon over the chilled cheesecake base.

Enjoy!

Want to know more about the ingredients? Check them out at the Raw Living store, where you will learn just what maca powder can do for your hormones and why chia seeds really are a superfood!

Guest Post - Real Food Diets: Raw Food for Busy Lives, by Saskia from Raw Freedom

This last year I have been trying different ways of eating to try and regain some of my balance, energy and overall health since bearing and rearing our 2 tinies. Over the next few months I'm bringing you a whole host of wonderful guest posts on a variety of Real Food Diets, from Raw to Paleo. Join me in this series and find the best real food for your mind, body and soul.



This week's post comes from Saskia at Raw Freedom. Miss last week's? We heard from Jennifer at Hybrid Rasta Mama on Fermented Foods. Go check it out!

Free up your life with Raw Freedom coaching!

Hello! I'm Saskia, experienced raw food and life guidance coach from Raw Freedom. I'm very pleased to be a guest on Mamma Earthly's fabulous blog and to be writing this post for all the busy folk who are interested in eating raw food but don't want to spend hours in the kitchen.

It's common for people to think that preparing raw food takes a long time and if you went by the majority of raw recipe books you'd be right! Most raw recipe books are created by raw food chefs. The recipes are delicious and exciting but also tend to be quite complex and time consuming to make. I love food and when I first started eating raw food nearly 5 years ago I bought the loveliest, shiniest raw recipe books I could find on the internet.  I was totally bowled over by the flavour and look of these super-fresh meals but totally under-whelmed by the amount of time it took to prepare them. I loved the idea of eating raw food and how it made me feel but I didn't want to spend my life in the kitchen.  

I'd always loved playing around with flavours and creating my own cooked recipes so I decided to turn my hand to creating delicious raw recipes that were super quick and easy to make. I pared down the complex recipes I'd found in those chef-written raw recipe books (with ingredients lists as long as my arm!) and refined them for my busy life without compromising on the sophistication and interest of the flavours. I'm pleased to say that my raw food meals quickly took less time to prepare than my cooked meals used to!

Of course there are tips and tricks to quick raw food so here is my list of must-haves for people with busy lives who want to experience the energy, vitality and great health that eating raw gives you:

1.  A good blender - investing in a good blender means you can whiz up raw smoothies, soups, sauces, pates and puddings in no time at all. Blenders range from good hand blenders to commercial blenders such as Blendtecs (my preferred high-power blender) and Vitamixes.2.  Quick recipes - although the chef-created raw recipes look and taste really exciting they aren't designed for people with busy lives.  Look out for recipes with a maximum of 15 ingredients (preferably with less than 10). I give my clients an army of soups, smoothies, pates and puddings that take less than 10 minutes to make, taste utterly delicious and save them from eating junk or from snacking on too many nuts.3.  Preparation - thinking one or two meals ahead will mean that you always have what you need when you're ready to make a meal (i.e. always soak a handful of nuts and/or seeds overnight because you can use them in a breakfast, smoothie or pate the next day and they'll keep in the fridge for up to 3 days, ready and waiting)4.  Stock ingredients - make a stock-items shopping list so you always have the ingredients for super quick recipes.  There's nothing slower than trying to make raw food from ingredients that need soaking and/or dehydrating!  My personal stock quick-recipe ingredients are avocados, spring onions, mineral salt, agave, vanilla essence and a few superfoods.  With these I can make something delicious straight away, or add whatever veggies or fruit I have to make a lovely soup, pate, smoothie or pudding.
5.  Stock recipes - get well practiced at about 5-10 recipes so that you can quickly put them together, hardly looking at the recipe itself.  Favourite stock recipes are my Spicy Tomato Soup, Hazelnut & Banana Superfood Smoothie,  Spicy Walnut Pate, Cashew Cheese Sauce, Marinated Mushrooms and Lime Mousse. You can't go wrong with these!
Here's a very normal example of the high raw food diet that I eat during a day in my busy and exciting life ...
Saskia's Raw Lime Mousse

Breakfast - A smoothie with fruit/veg and dark leafy greens (less than 10 minutes to make, including washing the fruit/veg and the blender afterwards)
Mid-morning snack - a piece of fruit 
Lunch - salad with raw pate and rice or oatcakes (15-20 minutes including washing the fruit/veg and washing up)
Tea-time - a superfood smoothie with nut milk and banana (less than 10 minutes to make, including washing the fruit/veg and the blender afterwards)
Supper - raw soup (less than 10 minutes to make, including washing the fruit/veg and the blender afterwards)

At the weekends you can make up a batch of raw chocolates or energy balls that you can snack on during the week. This is great if you've got kids too, because you can all make them together.

Before I started raw food coaching I worked away from home. I would make my breakfast and afternoon smoothie as well as my lunch before I went to work.  It was a lovely way to wake up as I chopped the veg and admired the colours and textures of the food I was preparing for later.  And of course I felt amazing and full of energy!

No matter what you're lifestyle it's very possible to eat a high raw diet that's quick, easy and packed full of the nutrition you need to be fantastically healthy, gorgeous and energetic.  It's just about having the right pieces in place to be able to make super-quick and deliciously vibrant raw food.

Saskia has made her life's work as a raw food coach, after discovering a turning point in her own life. At the age of 32 she tried a 2-week raw food trial. In those two weeks she went from suffering IBS, eczema, sore joints, bad skin, terrible memory and stress related emotional issues to being completely well again. Sold on the idea of raw food as a way of 'healing the body', she now wants to tell everyone else about it!

You can find Saskia on her blog, Facebook and Twitter.

Guest Post - Real Food Diets: Raising a Paleo Child, by Mamapoekie

This last year I have been trying different ways of eating to try and regain some of my balance, energy and overall health since bearing and rearing our 2 tinies. Over the next few months I'm bringing you a whole host of wonderful guest posts on a variety of Real Food Diets, from Raw to Paleo. Join me in this series and find the best real food for your mind, body and soul.



This week's post comes from Mamapoekie. Miss last week's? We heard from sexy raw chef Russell James on eating raw. Go check it out!

Real Food: The Paleo Diet

My family has been on the paleo diet for almost two years now. The paleo diet (also primal or caveman diet) is not so much a diet as a way of life. It is basically a modernized version of the hunter-gatherer diet, renouncing grains, legumes and all processed foods. Some versions of the diet exclude dairy, but as my family has no digestive issues with dairy, we do eat a small amounts of cheese, butter and the occasional yoghurt.


The main goal is to eat food as close to nature as possible in order to retain nutrients and maintain a healthy body, though, unlike the raw foods movement, cooking is involved. It also involves a healthy amount of the right kind of activity, like our caveman ancestors would have had. 


The diet is based on the idea that our bodies have not adapted to our fairly recent sedentary eating style, that of agriculture, with grains and legumes as staple foods, which only exists for about 10 000 years (depending on where you live) - which is, given man’s long evolution, a fairly short amount of time. 


Proof of our failure to adapt to this regime is the high amount of gluten intolerance found today (30% of all people in the Western World are said to be gluten intolerant), lactose intolerance and the many many ‘prosperity ilnesses’.


As we’re also unschoolers, enforcing a diet upon all the people in our household is not an option. Neither do we see the paleo diet as a religion, we get to wander out of it a little if it so pleases us, and when we’re invited to people’s houses, we won’t frown upon a piece of cake. Whenever we’re on holiday, we indulge ourselves with the occasional pastry, or chocolate (we are Belgians after all), but by now, we have learned that swarming outside of the paleo diet does us more wrong than the short pleasure of munching down on non-paleo foods.


Before we lived in Congo, the rule was: no non-paleo foods at home and outside, everyone could get what they desire, we did get the odd cookie or candy for our daughter when she asked for it.


Right now, all meals are paleo, except the occasional pizza or pasta dish (about once a month) and we still have some cookies and candies available for our daughter when she wants them. Wherever possible though, I try to bake paleo cookies.


We feel it’s important for her to make her own choices concerning food, and have the occasional talk about which foods do what to our bodies. Even though cookies, some chocolate and candies are available, she rarely eats them anymore, and is happy to watch a movie while munching down on a stick of cauliflower.


As we’ve always been very relaxed about who eats what, we’ve never had any issues regarding food. My daughter is a healthy eater and in great shape. As she grows older, she might want to eat paleo only, or she might not... That will be up to her.



Paleo Recipe: Exotic Coconut-Cabbage Mince
Ingredients
1 TBS olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 Bok Choy (Chinese cabbage), in thin slices
1/4 white cabbage, sliced
1 green pepper, diced
1 leek, chopped
2 large tomatoes, diced
1 cup coconut milk
1 TBS tumeric powder
1 TBS curry powder
pepper
1,5 pounds mince meat

Fry the mince in a pan with oil until it's nicely brown. Get it out of the pan and put aside. Fry the onion, add the garlic when the onion becomes translucent. Add green pepper and leek, stir and cover. Simmer for 2 minutes. Add Bok Choy and white cabbage. Add the spices, stir and cover for about 10 minutes (or until the peppers have softened) then add the tomatoes and put the meat back in. Pour the coconut milk over the dish and stir. When the tomatoes have thoroughly warmed, you're ready to serve. Enjoy!


Laura Schuerwegen a.k.a. Mamapoekie is a Belgian expat mother and wife, currently living at the banks of the Kasai river in DR Congo. She has an unschooled three year old and a little one due December. She writes about Life, the Universe and Everything at Authentic Parenting.