First post & raw truffles!

So I've been on a huge raw kick lately. I've always loved fresh produce and healthy foods, but I've been following so many blogs about the raw food diet and I love it! I definetly do eat a lot of vegan food already just because I rarely have dairy or eggs, besides the whey protein in my shakes. My sister bought me Happy Herbivore's two cookbooks for my recent birthday and I can't seem to put them down! I make at least two to three meals a week from those books. SO GOOD! Not to mention her recipes are pretty quick and easy too! Since I moved to California I'm loving all the fresh farmer's markets and health food stores that are available to us. Growing up a vegetarian in upstate New York was brutal. We had maybe one health food store in the area and as for organic produce? Occasionally but it was never really fresh or that commonly bought. Learning about good nutrition in the northeast was way too textbook. No one ever taught me about juicing or raw foods, it was all the SAD diet and what they use as a food pyramid. Being a 14 year old vegetarian starting out, I unfortunately didn't know any better and was eating frozen veggie burgers and fake chikin nuggets every night for dinner. Talk about unhealthy! I'm sooo glad I made the move and have discovered a whole new side to healthy vegetarian, vegan, and raw cuisine!

Tonight I made some raw truffles, yum!

I tweaked a recipe I had found earlier and divided the dough up into three seperate portions to make three yummy flavors :)

 

 

 

 Raw Truffles 

 

 

 

• 10 organic medjool dates, pitted
• 2/3 cup purified water
• 1/3 cup raw coconut oil, softened
• 1 cup raw cacao powder
• 2 cups raw almonds, ground to a meal or flour
• 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste or extract
• pinch of celtic sea salt/himalayan salt
• 5-6 drops organic liquid stevia, optional if you want them sweeter
• zest of one organic orange, orange extract, peppermint extract, and coffee extract

Raw cacao powder, cacao nibs, orange zest, shredded coconut, or any superfood powder would be great for rolling the truffles in!

Blend the dates, water, and coconut oil in a food processor/blender until a paste is formed. Add the cacao powder, vanilla bean, salt, and liquid stevia if desired and blend together. Add the chocolate mixture into a bowl with the ground almond meal/flour and mix completely together. Divide the dough equally into however many flavors you wish to make, I did three.

In the first bowl, add half the orange zest, and two teaspoons orange extract and mix. Roll into truffle sized balls and place on a nonstick silicone mat or parchment paper. Sprinkle with remaining orange zest.

In the second bowl, add two teaspoons peppermint extract and mix. Form into balls and roll in your desired topping, I chose shredded coconut for something different, yum!

Lastly do the same with the third portion, adding in two teaspoons coffee extract or desired flavor. Mix and form into balls. I topped with cacao nibs for an all over mocha taste.

Chill the truffles in the fridge or freezer for about a half an hour to firm them up and enjoy!!!

Well cheers to my first blog post ever! With many more to come ;)