My 'Foodie' Post :)

Recently food has been a battle far too frequently for this family. In particular, breakfast for the boys, lunch for Ari & desserts for the parentals. So, I set about to whip up some new awesomeness.

Buckwheat groats. You can sprout them to get the full nutritional content, & it is one that soaks water up the fastest (only 20-60 min & then after that they won't sprout). So, I soaked them (far too long however), then dehydrated them on a couple of cookies sheets outside for several hours! I was worried because of the incredibly high humidity (80% or higher most days) here, but they dried just great. I went out to stir them every couple of hours & brought them in when they were all crunchy sounding. The next morning I put bananas with them & almond milk & it was yum (not sweet at all, so definitely a sweeter fruit to mix in is a good idea)! I think it would be a fabulous food for little gums because it's really soft. The hubby liked it, now to try it out on the boys next week when they get home (I'm in the process of coming up with more variety on the menu so hopefully we have a little less dragging of the spoons around the breakfast bowls...)

Don't these look great (I'm no photographer, but the food speaks for itself!)? Now for the shocker--none of them have sugar (only agave)! Tony is on the no-sugar-for-a-year & I committed to doing it for a month (& then I'm going to try limiting my sugar to once a week *sigh*). Well, I just can't live without my yummies (I know, agave isn't totally perfect, but so much better than the alternatives). So...I went to one of my new favorite websites "Chocolate Covered Katie" (link under 'favorites' on my sidebar) & made her Chocolate Raspberry-Fudge Cake (it tastes like the DeBrand's Dark Chocolate Raspberry chocolate--the high class, highly amazing chocolatier here :) & also the chocolate banana version, both found HERE (btw, most of her recipes are for ONE decent serving, so adjust as needed). I used coconut oil instead of coconut butter (*note, it's very important to melt the coconut oil completely before adding the other ingredients or it will have a grainy consistency, not so appealing--to do that just put the oil in a glass container then fill a bigger container with hot water & put the smaller one into it. It melts faster if you refill the hot water once it cools down a bit).

Since those were both 110% successful & sooo delicious I decided to try her 'Cheesecake Mousse." The result? Weelll, let's just say I don't agree that tofu & vegan cream cheese create a decent version of the real deal. The next try I opted to go with organic cream cheese (big bonus--no hydrogenation in the one I bought), & heavy whipping cream sweetened with agave (whip & sweeten the cream before mixing in the cream cheese), topped with berries. I'll be honest, it's not 100% the exact same taste as 'regular' cheesecake using agave, but actually my taste buds now prefer the stuff over white death (a.k.a. granulated sugar :) It has such a light, refreshing taste that lets me notice & enjoy all the other flavors & textures more. I'm going to make some dark chocolate agave syrup tonight to drizzle over round 2 of this treat, wanna join us?