Sweets For the Sweet

For your entertainment, a diologue:

Imaginary Reader: Man! Enough already with the existential posts about the meaning of diet! They are bumming me out! What happened to all the delicious recipes? The kitchen hijinks? Too lazy to cook lately?

Me: Hey! I've still been in the kitchen turning out delicious foodstuffs...It's just that all this "why I eat the way I do" stuff has been weighing on my mind. I figured this was a relatively appropriate venue for working through it all.

I.R.: Yeah, well, you figured wrong. So how about you make with the cheese and leave the whine alone.

Me: You know, I don't think people who use awful puns like that have the right to judge someone else's writing...I'm just saying... But you are right. It is high time for some recipes.

***

For the past week's road trip to Philly, I made two different sweet snacks to munch on in the car. Fresh fruits and veggies are great to stay hydrated (something I have a problem with when I travel) but it's not advisable to tuck into a salad behind the wheel.

This first recipe (my version of the "Cranberry Maple Granola" from Raw Food, Real World) requires a little more prep and dehydration time but is definitely worth it. I may never eat cereal from a box again.

Grawnola

1/2 apple (any kind, but I've used Granny Smith the last two times), cored and chopped
3/4 cup date paste (see below for date paste recipe)
1/4 cup honey, maple syrup, or agave
1 tbs lemon juice
1/2 tbs vanilla
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp sea salt
1/4 sunflower seeds
1 cup almonds
1 1/2 pecans or walnuts
1/2 cup pumpkin seeds

To make date paste, soak dates in water for at least 45 minutes. Drain the dates, saving about 1/2 cup of the soaking water to facilitate blending. Remove the pits from the dates and blend until smooth. Add water as needed. This paste will keep for at least a two weeks in the fridge and is a great sweetener.

Soak all the nuts in plenty of water for at least 4 hours. I usually let them sit overnight.

In a blender, process the apple, date paste, honey/syrup, lemon juice, vanilla, cinnamon, and salt until completely smooth and liquid-y. Add warm water by the tablespoon (or date-soak water if you have any left) if it seems to be too thick to blend. Transfer to a large mixing bowl.

In a food processor or dryblade blender, coarsely chop the nuts. Depending on how big your processor/blender you may need to do this in batches. Depending on how you like your cereal, you might want to do a batch finely chopped and one coarsely chopped, give it a little texture.

Add the nuts to the mixing bowl and stir well to coat all the nuts with the apple mixture. Spread the grawnola mix onto parchment-paper-lined dehydrator trays and dehydrate overnight. Remove the grawnola from the paper and dehydrate for another 8-12 hours. Break into small pieces and store in the fridge for a couple of hours to really crisp up the grawnola. Serve with nutmilk (it stays really crunchy!) or, like I do, eat it straight from the box.

For dessert on the road and in the hotel, I made chocolate macaroons. In the past, I've made "blondie" versions of this cookie by replacing the cocoa powder with a heaping 1 1/2 cup of almond flour. Both delicious, both deadly.

Raw Macaroons

3 cups dried, unsweetened coconut flakes
1 1/2 cups cocoa powder (or almond flour)
1 cup maple syrup
1/3 cup coconut butter (make sure it's at room temp to make mixing easier)
1 tbs vanilla
1/2 tsp sea salt

Put all the ingredients in a very big bowl and stir until well combined.

Using a mini ice cream scoop, melon baller, tablespoon measuring spoon, or your hands, scoop out the batter onto dehydrator trays (no need to line them unless you really want to). These need about 24 hours in the dehydrator. They are done when the outside is crisp and the middle is still a little chewy.

These are really delicious, versatile cookies (Pap ate them with milk, Mom ate them with wine, Roomie crumbled them over ice cream), the recipe is super easy (one bowl clean up!), and any cookie that doesn't require me to turn the oven on in my non-AC apartment in the summer is aces in my book.

When I get back from this weekend's excursions, I'm going to experiment with making my own walnut flour, omitting the coconut butter in favor of flavored oils or pureed fruit (strawberries, maybe?), honey instead of maple syrup etc.

So there you go, Imaginary Reader. A couple of summer-ready, road-trip-friendly raw desserts. If that doesn't make you happy, stick your face inside the chocolate macaroon bowl and lick it clean.

If that doesn't help, perhaps you can stick other things other places and stop bringing me down, Frowny McCrankerson. Geez.