Simple Chia pudding Pie

Hi everyone! 

Yesterday Jakob wanted to make a raw dessert, so we went into the kitchen to throw something together. He was a bit shaky, asking for directions :) I'm not much for giving all the details when I show how to make a raw dessert. You learn best by the discipline of trial & error, and if you get some space to figure things out for your self, your intuition is with you and that's when magic really starts to happen. 

We didn't put any coconut oil in the filling this time. Instead we decided to make a chia pudding filling. For those of you who is new to chia, the seeds swells in liquid and forms a gel, a bit like flax seeds. Chia serves as a stabilizing agent you can have a lot of fun with! 

This is not the fancy sort of engineered raw pie you'd make to impress your mother in law. It's an impromptu pie for all of you who love this category of raw desserts. Few ingredients, basic flavors and no fuss :) You can vary this pie in a million ways, using your favorite berries and fruits, add super foods and spices. 

Variations:

• If you use blueberries, add a squeeze or two of lime. Lime enhances the blueberry flavor, and also makes pink marks in the blueberry filling (great for decoration).

• If you use raspberries, skip the salt. Salt and raspberries DON'T match!

• Experiment with the nuts used in the base. Have you tried pistaschios? You will be amazed of how gorgeous they are together with the dates. You can add some whole pistachios to the base to make it crunchy.

• Want to go nut free? No problems. Substitute the 1 cup of nuts with 0.5 cup pumpkin seeds and 0.5 cup of shredded coconut. 

• Use cardamom, nutmeg and / or cinnamon as a seasoning for the base. 

Jakob's Simple Chia pudding Pie, serves three.

(Swedish further down)

For the base

• 1 cup of Dates (remove two dates to reduce the sweetness)

• 1 cup of Nuts (macadamias, pecans etc)

• 1/4 teaspoon real Vanilla (the black seeds from a pod)

• A pinch of Himalayan salt

Pit and soak the Dates for 5 minutes. Grind the nuts into a flour in your blender or food processor. Add the rest of the ingredients and process until you have a dough. Press down the dough on a plate or pie form measuring about 8 inches (20 cm) across.

Filling

• 1 cup Berries of your choice

• 3 teaspoons of light Agave nectar or honey

• 2 tablespoons of Chia seeds

• 1/4 teaspoon real Vanilla

• half a banana

Add all of the ingredients to your blender. Pour the filling over the base and add some berries on top. Put in the fridge to chill a couple of hours or overnight.

Jakobs Enkla Chiapudding Paj, ca tre bitar

Pajdeg

• 2 dl Dadlar (ta bort 2-3 dadlar för att reducera sötman något)

• 2 dl Nötter (macadamia el pecannötter)

• 1 krm äkta Vanilj (det svarta pulvret)

• 1 nypa Himalayasalt

Kärna ur och blötlägg Dadlarna i 5 min. Kör nötterna i en matberedare tills du får ett mjöl. Tillsätt då övriga ingredienser och mixa till en deg. Forma ett pajskal av degen på ett fat eller en liten pajform som mäter ca 20 cm.

Chiafyllningen

• 2 dl Bär (tex hallon, blåbär och eller jordgubbar).

• 3 tsk ljus Agavenektar

• 2 msk Chiafrön

• 1 krm äkta Vanilj

• en halv banan

• 1 msk Acaíbär pulver, för extra näring (frivilligt)

Kör i en mixer och häll fyllningen över pajskalet. Dekorera med mer bär och ställ i kylen några timmar eller över natten för att få en mer puddinglik konsistens. 

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What to do a gloomy day..

This is what it looked outside my window when I woke up this morning... Gaaah... Even though I have my hands full of upgrading our webshop (making it available for international customers too), I do have a list of things that will brighten up a day like this!

• Take care of your morning! Charge your day with positive energy by letting the hours in the morning be the most important to you. How can you fill yourself with a high-on-life-vibe? Do you need to give yourself a really slow morning, reading the newspaper, or go out for a brisk walk? 

• Put your favorite music on. I love Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, David Gray, Daniel Lemma, Priscilla Ahn (try the 'A Good Day' album) and as you know John Mayer. People with great voices, classy, intimate and warm. If you're into guitar music, Jon Gomm is a must. 

• Nothing makes you feel fresher than exfoliate your face and body with a great scrub. This is my recipe that I've used for years and years, it costs barely nothing to make: 

Karolina's Sugar Exfoliating Scrub

- 0.5 cup brown sugar (with fine grains)

- 1/4 cup oil (sunflower seed oil, sesame oil, olive oil, jojoba oil, avocado oil etc) depends on the level of luxtury you want. Sunflowerseed oil is the budget choice, and jojoba oil the best quality oil for your skin. 

- Add 10 drops of Lavender oil into it all and stir. 

- Put in a glass jar with a lid and keep it close to where you shower. Use once a week. 

If you have sensitive skin: Use sesame oil that calms the skin. I love to use it on my feet and hands too. After the scrub, apply some virgin coconut oil in your face as a balm and then put your day cream on top. I use Weleda Skin food and organic surge's products (first class face mask is great).

• Write a thank you-letter by hand to someone you care about.

• Take the time to get engaged! Check out Avaaz.com, larouchepac.com, naturalnews.com, abundanthope.net and halfpasthuman.com to get the type of insider information the news will never give you.. 

• Watch Miyazaki-movies! The latest one is "The borrower Arrietty" from 2010. Though, you have to watch them in Japanese, English just won't do! 

• Make raw hot chocolate with mesquite, raw cacao, agave, some cinnamon, a pinch of cloves and chili. Enjoy it while thinking about things you are grateful of having in your life.

• If you don't write a journal, why not start now? And when you are at it, why not make a Creative Journal! Check out this gifted woman and her amazing program.

• If you're a woman: put on a bright red lipstick. This is a killer trick to quickly sassify your day! Especially for those of you that instinctively avoid bright red lips (or lipstick at all). Try it out! Maybe you didn't know you had a burlesque hottie inside of you. You will definitely get appreciative glances from both men and women. The great thing about bright red lips, is that it fits you weather you are a brunette, blond or redhead. 

• If you're a man: try shaving with a real shaving knife, shaving balm and a leather strop for proper maintenance. Here's some tips from the master barbers.

• Walk around all day wearing nothing else but a red nightgown (one that fits you Perfect), a pair of cozy legwarmers and a knitted cardigan. Stay in bed reading and sipping tea. 

• Put time and love into making yourself a fine meal with starters, main course and dessert. Set the table as nicely as you can. Candles and music is a must. 

• Read haikus. Reading haiku poems is a great way to slow down. Haiku is the Japanese art in communicating short and precise, using only three phrases, to describe a scene from nature.

• Find your favorite quote and frame it.

• Join your local transition movement, or urban farming movement or become a guerreilla gardener!

• Dance! Put on some silly music and hit it! 

• Sign up for your local Flashmob group to discover a fun social phenomenon and to find new, wierd friends (definitely wierder than you ^_^) 

• Send some love to a hospitalized person with these healing boxes!

• Spread some love by pasting lovely notes on walls and on lamp posts in your city. You will feel like the Hero of the Day.

• Go to a beauty shop and smell perfumes for at least 30 minutes. Find your every-day-scent, and your bold-diva/macho scent. I'm in love with this one.. 

• Turn a second hand item into a piece of art by adding color, beads, cutting shapes, or using a specific detail of it and give it away. This is a great exercise for your right brain and to see the potential greatness in things! Check out me and Jakob's lamp we crafted here.

• Watch TED talks aaaall day... 

• Create a playlist with 5-20 (or more) songs that really speaks to your heart, making you feel on top of the world, energized and buzzy happy!! This is your life-line playlist to listen to when you need it the most: in times when you are low, uninspired / disconnected, or when you feel as happy as the songs make you feel! Make one to sheer you up, one meditative and one to get you in the mood. [...Do you want Barry?]

• Get a nice flower with a lovely fragrance! The scent will fill your room with an alive aroma that will lift your mood in zero time. I have one of these jasmines by my computer. 

• Kill some time on Etsy.com or, if you're up for some good laughs perfectlytimedphotos.com  

• But... why dread a gloomy day? There's nothing that brings out your inner child the way snowflakes can.

Get your Valentine's heart glowing!

This is the post we have all been waiting for... The pre-Valentine's Day post! I had about twenty ideas of cute desserts to make (I mean this IS the highlight of the dessert-year according to me), but I fell for this one. A classic raspberry cheesecake in a glass, with a fun chocolate heart. To me, eating your dessert with a spoon from a glass, adds to a more luxurus experience. Something that brings the memories back to summer, a first date, that bubbelgum excitement and innocence.

Can't say we are really big with mousse-desserts like this or sundaes in Sweden, sometimes swedes get suspicious when something is a little too good (like an overwhelmingly gorgeous sundae). Then they pop right back into the default mode of root vegetables, wet mud and clogs. It just has to be a little awful (which reminds me of a classic Monty Python sketch..)

King Arthur: Old woman. 

Dennis: Man. 

King Arthur: Man, sorry. What knight lives in that castle over there? 

Dennis: I'm 37. 

King Arthur: What? 

Dennis: I'm 37. I'm not old. 

King Arthur: Well I can't just call you "man". 

Dennis: Well you could say "Dennis". 

King Arthur: I didn't know you were called Dennis. 

Dennis: Well you didn't bother to find out did you? 

King Arthur: I did say sorry about the "old woman", but from behind you looked... 

Dennis: What I object to is you automatically treat me like an inferior. 

King Arthur: Well I am king. 

Dennis: Oh, king eh? Very nice. And how'd you get that, eh? By exploiting the workers. By hanging on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society. 

I love how they are collecting mud on their knees, wearing old rags, being very medieval and using their hands and sticks as tools. It has sort of become my image of misery over the years. The thing is, that even if our modern western life is of a high living standard, some people are still, mentally, in the muddy-situation, know what I mean? It's really down to a decision, weather or not you want to shine with the sun, or rolling around in cold, wet mud. 

THIS is the definition of my fight! To out-glamour all dullness in our society (it can't be that hard?!). 

I Love You Raspberry Cheesecake-Mousse, serves 2

This is a simple dessert with a 6 ingredient mousse, but with a chocolate heart that is a little more advanced to make. If you want to keep it more simple, skip the white chocolate decoration on the heart! (Swedish further down).

• 500 g frozen Raspberries (1.5 cups as thawed) 

• 1.5 cup shredded Coconut (grounded into a flour)

• 0.5 cup virgin Coconut oil

• 2-3 tablespoons light Agave nectar, or the sweetener of your choice

• 0.5 cups Water

• 1/4 teaspoon real Vanilla

Thaw the frozen Raspberries in some hot water. They need to be at room temperature to incorporate with the coconut oil later. Make a fine flour of the shredded Coconut by grinding it in a coffee grinder or blender. Add all of the ingredients to a food processor or blender except the coconut oil, and process until completely smooth. Then add the Coconut oil and process 30 seconds more. Use a virgin coconut oil, that is raw/cold pressed. It has a wonderful taste that enhances your desserts to the maximum!

Chocolate heart

• 50 g Cocoa butter = 1/4 cup as liquid

• 3 tablespoons Virgin Coconut oil (1 tbsp if you don't want to decorate the hearts)

Melt the Cocoa butter and Coconut oil in a water bath or in a dehydrator. Pour in a bowl and stir by hand. If you want to decorate the hearts with text or patterns, pour 2 tbsp in a plastic squeezing bottle and wait for it to thicken. Before you start decorating, you want the consistency of the white chocolate to be rather firm, but loose enough so you can squeeze it out through the narrow pipe. Alternatively you can use a clear plastic bag, and cut off a very small piece of the corner and use it as a pastry bag. The squeezing bottle gives you more precision though.

Now add the following ingredients to the melted oils:

• 2 tablespoons raw Cacao powder

• 1/8 teaspoon real Vanilla

• 2 tablespoons dark Agave

• 0.5 teaspoons Sunflower lecitine (to make the chocolate more crisp and shiny).

Stir by hand very thoroughly to allow the Sunflower lecitine to completely blend with the oils. This will require you to stir with a whisk for 7-10 minutes. Now start making the hearts!

1) Cover a completely flat plate, or tray with grease proof paper. Use some tape to keep the paper in place. 

2) Put it in the freezer to cool down before you continue with the making of the heart. Also make some room in your fridge for the plate.

3) Place a heart shaped cookie cutter on the plate, about 6 cm / 2.5 inch wide. If you have more of them, the better as it will spare you some time. 

4) Put two fingers firmly on the cookie cutter and start to pour some of the melted chocolate in the heart. Wait a moment, and put the plate with the heart in the fridge until hard. 

5) Remove the chocolate heart by first carefully lift the cookie cutter starting from one side, and then firmly push the chocolate out of the cookie cutter. If it should break, no worries. You then melt it in the water bath and have another go. The sunflower lecitine will help the chocolate to stay hard and crisp. 

The decoration

This moment requires your patience and attention to work. When you have your hearts removed from the cookie cutter it's time to decorate them. Make sure the melted white chocolate in the squeezing bottle has the right consistency by trying it on your cutting board. If it's too runny, put the bottle in a glass of cold water and wait a bit. If it's too hard so that nothing comes out; put the bottle in some hot water instead.

If you are not happy with the decorating, just wipe it off with some paper tissue (only do it before it hardens). 

I Love You Hallon Cheesecake-Mousse, 2 portioner

Det här är en enkel dessert med en 6 ingrediens-mousse, men med ett chokladhjärta som är lite mer avancerad att göra. Om du vill hålla det mer enkelt, skippa bara spritsningen med vit choklad på hjärtana.

Hallon Cheesecake Mousse

• 1 dl virgin Cocosolja
• 3 dl riven Cocos
• 500 g frysta Hallon (3 dl som tinade).
• 1 dl Vatten, blötläggningsvattnet till Hallonen
• 1.5-2 msk ljus Agavenektar

Tina Hallonen i lite varmt vatten. Det är viktigt att de får rumstemperatur när de sen mixas ihop med cocosoljan, annars skär det sig. Gör ett fint mjöl av den rivna Cocosen i en elektrisk kaffekvarn el. blender. Tillsätt alla ingredienser till en matberedare eller blender utom Cocosoljan och mixa tills helt slät. Tillsätt då Cocosoljan och mixa ytterligare 30 sek. Häll på fina glas och spritsa sista biten med en stjärnformad tyll-spets.



Chokladhjärtan


• 50 g Kakaosmör = 0.5 dl som smält. 

• 3 msk Virgin Cocosolja (1 msk om du inte vill dekorera hjärtana)

Smält Kakaosmöret och Cocosoljan i ett vattenbad eller torkugn. Häll i en skål och blanda. Om du vill dekorera hjärtana med text eller mönster, häll då 2 msk av de smälta oljorna i en klämflaska med pip och vänta tills oljorna börjar hårdna. Alterntivt kan du använda en genomskinlig 1 l plastpåse och klippa av en pytteliten bit av ena hörnet och använda som en spritspåse. Klämflaskan är dock enklare.

Innan du börjar dekorera så ska den smälta chokladen ha tjocknat nog för att kunna klämmas fram, men inte rinna ut. Prova på skärbrädan först. Skulle det bli fel på hjärtat så är det bara att torka bort med lite papper. 

Tillsätt till skålen med de smälta oljorna:

• 2 msk raw Kakaopulver

• 0.5 krm äkta Vanilj

• 2 msk mörk Agve

• 0.5 tsk Solroslecitin (gör raw choklad mer hård och glänsande).

Rör för hand med en visp länge så att Solroslecitinet kan lösas upp. Det kan ta runt 7-10 min av vispande. 

När den smälta chokladen har gått samman och allt ser fint ut, du har smakat av, så är det dags att göra hjärtana!

1) Klä en helt platt tallrik eller tex bricka med smörpapper. Fäst med tjejp. Ställ in den i frysen så att den är mycket kall innan du börjar med hjärtat. Passa också på att göra plats i ditt kylskåp för tallriken/brickan.

2) Placera en eller flera hjärtformade pepparkaksformar på tallriken (minst 6 cm breda). Om du har fler än en är det jättebra, det sparar dig tid.


3) Placera två fingrar över hjärtat så det hålls på plats, och börja hälla i den smälta chokladen. Hjärtat ska bli ca 1 cm tjockt. Vänta en stund så att chokladen stelnar från den kalla tallriken. Sen ställer du den försiktigt i kylen och väntar tills chokladen hårdnat. 

4) Lyft på hjärtat från smörpappret från en sidan av formen så kan du dra av pappret lättare. Tryck försiktigt ut hjärtat ur pepparkaksformen med fingrarna. Skulle den gå sönder, smälter du bara om den i vattenbadet igen.

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