Chocolate and Other Adventures; Funny Faces

Happy Holidays to everyone! We had fresh snow for Christmas day, and lovely times with family and friends. After a late night last night, this morning was the first morning in a while that I didn't leap up and start making chocolate of some sort, or other goodie-prep, and funnily enough my appetite is better today. I didn't make the de-stress connection at all - my clever husband had to point it out!

Here's some of what I was up to:
-spread out to chill atop our freezer out on the stoop: the good thing about how cold it is here is that chocolate firms up fast. That's also the bad thing, because it's hard to make the initial chocolate without getting congealed cacao butter _everywhere_!

 The above picture became these nut-seed bars: so delicious, so beautiful, Phil's daughter's new favorite breakfast!...

...and these ginger ganache truffles.

I also made white chocolate-blueberry truffles...

...more hazelnut-amaretto-cherry truffles...

...chocolate-dipped mint bars (in process here)...

...and still had some congo bars from earlier.

The mint bars were based on the recipe in Living Raw Food by Sarma Melngailis; the truffles and bars were somewhat based on recipes in Sweet Gratitude. That's why I NEED to own that book--I could barely restrain myself from making everything in it!

Did I mention--my major adaptation was to make everything very low sugar. I used, variously, stevia, xylitol, erythritol, glycerine, coconut nectar and a special syrup I'll tell more about in a moment.

Taking a break from chocolate--first thing Christmas morning I peeled six pomegranates for cheesecake!

That's a lot of pomegranate!

And the juice (ready to go with cashews etc in the blender here) is just so beautiful!

 Boy, were my hands sticky at the end of that process! And then imagine, with this chocolate-and-cheesecake factory, and no running water, how mess can build up and cleanup can be tricky!

 Don't even think about washing that mesh bag from the pomegranate juice... Yes, that blue jug only holds six gallons of water, and it goes fast when you're prepping up a storm...

My Special No-Sugar Sweetener--OK, it's not mine, it turns out. But as I was running out of coconut nectar and loath to spend another $10 for less than 2c of it, I wondered about making a xylitol syrup. And I googled around and discovered that it could be done! I followed the suggestions on this link and got me a syrup that isn't raw at all but is very low-glycemic and neutrally flavored.

I boiled the syrup a little too long, evidently, because apart from what I used that morning and blended very well, the rest crystallized. Beautiful crystals, though:

I didn't manage to take pics of everything I made, and I forgot to picture the coconut whisky I made using the xylitol syrup, and the to-die-for colada mix to go with it. Raw pina colada with coconut whisky because Phil's daughter doesn't do well with rum and it was as well to make it sugar-free too!

Update 12/27--Managed to snag pics of the pina colada at Phil's daughter's last night!

Take a break to watch this rooster pheasant high in the tree enjoying some frozen mountain ash berries. They are big birds to be so high in the trees. Take a break while Phil goes skiing, and I'll pass over the big cleanup and frantic gift-wrapping operation I undertook, and the moment when I almost set the cabin on fire through a mishap with parchment paper in the oven when I had run out of water...

 ...and here we are at our friends' house, dressed up and party-moded, putting stuff together...I didn't get a good picture of the mango salad I made from Raw Food Real World per request,but you can sort of see it below... I love playing in David's kitchen!

 ...together with a tantalizing choccie pic. And here's a slightly better one together with my usual green salad. You can always use and enjoy a green salad--or I can!

 I love the texture of the julienned mango, and was really impressed that I managed to peel four mangoes and julienne three of them in about 15 minutes flat!

I also made a thai-flavored stew with eggplant, yam, onion and napa and purple cabbages, simmered in lemongrass, ginger, turmeric and coconut milk...

 Back to the chocolates - all together now!

Yummies...

And here is the pomegranate cheesecake--double yum! I'm so glad that I asked our hosts to look through the books and make requests: it helped me to focus somewhat.

Well-enjoyed just as is...

...or with pina colada the next day.

Again--all of these sweets and desserts were low-glycemic (sweetened with coconut nectar/xylitol syrup/glycerine/xylitol/erythritol/stevia) and dairy/gluten free, with the exception of a batch of licorice caramels I made 'regular' because Phil loves them so.

Now to some pictures of People!
One of the games we played among ourselves and our extended family elsewhere was to find unusual/unintended uses for gifts and post pictures of those. Phil has a great flair for that, and for making faces!

This hilariously over-felted hat will be perfect if Phil ever goes to Israel with me to meet my family!

This was a joke-hat, but the dangly thing is like a piece of bait for him...

I got him long underwear and he decided to ditch the yarmulka and go for an Arafat look! That face just cracks me up every time I see it!

Our neighbors...

...with the innovative wrapping-paper hat... gave everyone these beautiful star-lanterns that you put a lightbulb inside to light up the night. We decided that those would make great hats too.

So first off: Miss Vaa-Vaa-Voom, Phil's gorgeous daughter!

...and our lovely hostess, Miss O...

My turn!

Happy Holidays to you all--much love, peace and joy.