Homemade chocolate tart

My chocolate tart

Well, I got a bit experimental in the kitchen this afternoon and came up with this chocolate tart which I am quite proud of! It's quite decadent but it's very rich so you only need a small slice! The crust is sweet and coconutty and the filling is a velvety, moussey, chocolatey mouthful of deliciousness! (If I say so myself!) Here's the recipe:

Crust:
1 1/2 cups hazelnuts
1/ cup shredded coconut
Dash salt
1/ 4 cup coconut oil
1/4 cup agave nectar

Grind the hazelnuts, coconut and a small pinch of salt in the food processor to a crumb-like texture.
Then add the coconut oil (melted over a bowl of warm water first) and agave and mix in til it comes together.
Then press the mixture down in a pie dish to form a crust.
Then put it in the freezer to set while you do the next bit.

Filling:
1 1/2 avocados (I know, sounds weird, but just go with it- you would never know there is avocado in this when you taste it! It gives it a lovely velevety, rich texture, just believe me and try it!)
1/2 cup raw cacao powder
1/4 cup agave
1/4 cup coconut oil
1 capful natural vanilla extract
2 tbsps water

Basically, bung it all in the food processor and blend it all up. Add the water last- just enough until you get the right kind of silky texture.

Then get, the crust from the freezer, and spread the chocolate filling over the top. Then I sprinkled some more shredded coconut over the top, more for decoration than anything else. And that's it done, easy peasy!

Natalia Rose's guacamole salad

Thought I'd also share with you a couple of salads I've made recently. Last night I made the guacamole salad from The Raw Food Detox Diet which is possibly my favourite ever salad. It's just avocado, tomatoes, romaine lettuce, coriander, garlic, agave, lime juice (well, I used lemon juice as I didn't have any limes) and salt and pepper, but something about the combination is so delicious. It's really quick and easy too, you just bung it all in a bowl and mix it together. The picture is a bit rubbish as the batteries have gone in my camera so today's pics are all taken with my phone!

Packed lunch salad and black pepper cheeze

I'm also in rehearsals for a play at the moment so I've been making packed lunches to take with me again, and on the left is what I had today. The salad has a mix of different stuff in it- alfafa sprouts, mixed bean and lentil sprouts, sweetcorn, yellow pepper, grated carrot, celery and cress (blast from the past- forgot how good it is!) I've a feeling I've forgotten something else I put in it but can't remember what... but anyway, it was lovely. I also brought some more of that liquid gold elixir dressing to go with it that I've talked about before,  also from Natalia Rose's book. The little tub next to the salad is black pepper cheeze from Ani's Raw Food Kitchen. I know I'm always banging on about this book but it is my favourite, I've had it for ages but it's got so many good recipes in it I use it a lot. However, I've just ordered her new book Ani's Raw Food Essentials so I'm really looking forward to that arriving and trying out some of her new recipes. But anyway, the black pepper cheeze from her old one is really tasty. It's made with cashew nuts, and it's so much better than I imagined it would be. Not sure why but I wasn't expecting too much from it, but it's great, quite addictive.

I was going to tell you a bit about the colonic I had yesterday (my first one!) but I've written too much already, but I will just tell you it was great and I thoroughly recommend that everyone gets it done! If you live in London there's a half price deal on at the moment at a brilliant place with great therapists if you go here: http://www.wahanda.com/product/2701-39-for-1-hour-colonic-hydrotherapy-session-facial-or-massage-at-hydrohealing-value-85-save-54/ so it's only £39. I think you have to book the deal by tomorrow night though (Sunday night). And if you go here first: www.wahanda.com/love/kaybee you get another £5 off so it's only £34, bargain. It's through a free beauty newsletter thing called wahanda which has loads of cheap deals and offers. But I definitely recommend it!

Ok, I have written much more than I intended to so I must go now, but might go into more colonic info at a later date if anyone wants to know any more! See ya x

The Master Cleanse and Sherry's salad

I haven't talked about it on here before, but just over a month ago I did the master cleanse. It's basically a full-on detox for 10 days, where you have no food, just a drink that you make from fresh lemon juice, grade B maple syrup (or madal bal tree syrup which I used as it contains more nutrients), cayenne pepper and water. It is hard but it is a really great detox. In them mornings you're meant to do a salt water flush- I tried this once, it was revolting, and didn't have the desired effect! It's meant to make you go to the loo and empty it all out of you, but it just stayed in my stomach, swishing around and gave me a massive bloated belly. So I switched to doing coffee enemas, which were really effective and a great cleansing/ detoxifying aid. In the evenings you have a herbal laxative tea. This whole process really cleanses your colon and bowel and I felt lighter and freer at the end of it. It sounds a bit wanky to say this but I really did feel detoxified mentally as well as physically at the end of it.

Then after the 10 days, you need to ease yourself back into food, so you do 2 days of just drinking fresh organic orange juice. To be honest, I wasn't looking forward to orange juice that much, but I got a load of oranges and put them through my juicer and oh my days... it was the BEST orange juice I had ever tasted! After 10 days without food I felt like my taste buds were exploding! Then the next 2 days I just had a variety of different fruit and vegetable juices, to prepare my body for going back to solid food gradually. I made some delicious ones, including carrot, beetroot, apple and celery, and pear and ginger. Yum! But the most interesting thing about this 4 day period was that I started taking psyllium husk to finish off the cleansing process and clear out the remaining debris from my intestines. Oh my gosh, I won't go into detail here but it really does work, you wouldn't believe what starts coming out of you! If you're interested, do a google image search for mucoid plaque (if you're not eating!) and take a look! I have to say, it was quite satisfying! And now I'm fully back on food, my digestion has definitely improved. Probably shouldn't go into any further detail now, don't want to gross people out any more than I already have ;)

Anyway, the results of this were so great- I felt a million times better, really happy, light, healthy and positive, oh and I lost 13lbs (put 2 lbs back on when I started eating again and my colon started filling up again, but hey!) that I kept talking about it to my friends. And Sherry decided to give it a go herself. She'd been having some health issues which doing a good detox and eating more raw foods could really help. She did amazingly, even getting up at the crack of dawn to do the salt flush every morning (well done Sherry!). She's now completed the full cleanse, and is starting to eat raw foods. She made an amazing looking salad the other day which I have to share with you. See the picture below.

Sherry's salad

Liquid gold elixir

It has in it: lettuce, beetroot, cress, marinated courgette strips, grated carrot, marinated corn and red onion, red chili, enoki mushrooms, cashews and sesame seeds. Yum! She also made a dressing from Natalia Rose's Raw Food Detox Diet book, the liquid gold elixir, which she says is possibly the best thing she's ever tasted! That was one of the first raw books I bought, yet I never made that dressing but I am definitely going to make it after that recommendation! Sherry, you are inspiring me.

So,  I still haven't got round to making that chili but tonight that is definitely going to be my dinner. I will let you know how it turns out. It better be good after all my building it up! I'm sure it will, I love all Ani Phyo's recipes. So I'll do another post either later or tomorrow to let you know how the chili was. And I want to get some of those enoki mushrooms- apparently you can get them in Asda, but I reckon I've seen them in the little Japanese shop up the road so will be popping up there in my lunch break. I'll be having a big salad with taco nut meat and sour kream for lunch, and some more crackers (which I've already scoffed...) And I had a delicious green smoothie for breakfast. It's all good!