Nothing's Better Than Dessert For Lunch

So you know that I’ve given up meat and that I’m adding more raw foods into my diet.

Well I was a little worried about this initially seeing as I’m also gluten, corn and soy free for allergy reasons.

So now that I’ve taken all those things out what the heck am I left with to eat?

Dessert, that’s what, especially chocolate!

I’ve come down with a total blog crush for Averie’s blog Loves Veggies and Yoga. She has the most amazing dessert recipes and because they’re made with healthy foods the only thing “dessert” about them is the taste.

So far I’ve made 4 of her treats, 3 of which were chocolate, and I only injured myself once. Yeah, you read that right.

My first treat was the previously mentioned chia seed pudding. It was so good and so easy I just had to try another one.

My next attempt was the vegan chocolate mousse. This one was a little more complex since it required a blender. You could probably make this without one but I don’t think it would come out as smooth and creamy. Oh, and this is the one I injured myself making.

How could I possibly hurt myself making chocolate mousse you ask? Well the main ingredient, besides chocolate, is avocados. You can’t taste the avocado after you mix in the chocolate (or raw cacao like I did), I swear! However getting those pits out can be a pain, literally. I know, I’m special.



Oh, and I managed to splatter it across my cupboards. Luckily it was really good and the whole thing was just too funny to be upset about it.



After trying to lop my thumb off I thought I’d go back to no-sharp-tools-required recipes so I chose the raw vegan caramel nut bites. These require all of 3 ingredients, dates, pine nuts (really a seed), vanilla and a blender. What could be easier right? Well that’s what I thought, right until I put the dates in the blender and it made this crazy, crunching noise. It turns out dates have pits. Who knew, well, it turns out everyone but me. So then I got to pick ground up pits out of my caramel nut bites. Fun. Hmmm...do you see a pattern here?

Now considering these don’t have any chocolate, they are really good! Averie adds nut butter to hers so I thought I would give it try too. I used cashew butter because it’s the only nut butter I can eat. The caramel bites mixed with cashew butter were just ridiculously good.



And finally I gave the raw vegan chocolate coconut oil bars a go. I know what you’re thinking, chocolate and coconut how could I not have started with these first?

Once again these are ridiculously easy; chocolate (raw cacao) powder, coconut oil, agave, vanilla, mix, freeze, done. I used silicone heart cups to freeze them in so they would be easy to remove and because I heart chocolate. Sorry, I just can't help myself sometimes.



Why do I use raw cacao? Raw cacao is full of antioxidants, essential minerals like magnesium and neurotransmitters like serotonin and endorphins. So by using cacao powder I get the yummy taste of chocolate with lots of health benefits that actually make it good for me.

Here's my main criteria for trying a recipe, since as you may have figured, I am no master in the kitchen; it has to be easy. Meat is pretty easy to make, it comes in many pre-made varieties (sorry, I think I heard some of you gag) so I need easy, healthy, filling and most importantly, delicious foods to take it's place. These fill those requirements for me so I've been very happy.

And in case you're wondering, the caramel bites and vegan chocolate mousse have often been the main part of my lunch. And any time I have dessert for lunch (or dinner) I’m a happy little greenie.

Which reminds me, I need to make more caramel bites, minus the pits this time. ;)

I'd love to know if you decide to make any of these and even better, if you have some super easy recipes to add. Preferably ones that don't involve knives. ;)