A Creative Life
My creativity is really coming alive at the moment. I’m back into the joy of making new recipes, as well as applying my creativity to my yurt-home. And I’ve just heard that I’ve been accepted onto a one year art course, which is all about finding your creative voice and learning how to produce a body of art work. I adore doing my art, but I’ve had trouble motivating myself without any accountability. One of the exciting things about this course is that we meet every two months and set out goals for what we will achieve creatively between times. Because of being a coach I know just how important accountability can be to bringing your dreams into reality, and I have it in the perfect form for me at last! I can’t wait to see what comes out of it 🙂
Mixing it up
On the food front, I’ve been enjoying throwing in some cooked ingredients into raw recipes. I’ve always loved toasted nuts and seeds, so it’s great to add them into mostly raw treats for a deeper toasted flavour. Cocoa powder (as opposed to raw cacao powder) is a winner because it can be eaten in the evening without troubling your sleep (in case you aren’t aware, raw cacao is very stimulating, a bit like coffee, so can keep you up or disrupt your sleep if you have it later in the day).
One of the things that I love about having been so heavily into raw foods for years is that it expanded my understanding of how you can prepare food. Baking was replaced by blending and molding cakes and biscuits from raw sweet ingredients, and I really enjoyed the process of trying to create raw desserts that were as exciting as cooked ones.
Now that I’m not focusing just on the raw, combining cooked and raw ingredients and preparation methods is opening up a whole new world of flavours and textures. It’s getting my creative juices flowing, and I hope today’s recipe gets yours flowing too!
This Week’s Recipe: Spice Brownies
Of course these are delicious any time of year, but they do make a lovely addition to festive celebrations and gatherings. Cut these into bite size brownies for a gathering, or into larger slices for a teatime treat.
Makes approx. 40 bite size brownies or 10 teatime slices
Ingredients
250 g / 9 oz dried dates (soaked overnight) or fresh medjool dates
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 tsp cinnamon
3 tsp fresh ginger
6 gratings of fresh nutmeg
1 pinch unrefined salt
200 g / 7 oz ground almonds
60 g / 2 oz cup cocoa/raw cacao powder, sifted
3 handfuls goji berries
3 handfuls pumpkin seeds, toasted
6 tbsp coconut oil, melted
Method
If you’ve soaked dried dates overnight, drain the water and reserve.
Blend the drained dates/medjool dates with the vanilla essence, cinnamon, fresh ginger, nutmeg and salt into a thick puree, adding soak water/water 1 tablespoon at a time to help it blend if necessary.
Add the date puree mix to a bowl and thoroughly combine with the ground almonds, cocoa/ raw cacao powder, 2 handfuls of goji berries, 2 handfuls of toasted pumpkin seeds and coconut oil.
On a clean, flat surface, place a large piece of greaseproof paper. With clean hands, shape the brownie dough into a square or rectangle 1.5 cm / 3/4″ deep. Place the brownie block into the fridge for one hour, or until set.
With a sharp knife cut the brownie block into large or bite size brownie pieces.
Keeps in the fridge for 5 days, or in the freezer for up to a month.
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