Irish Cream Mousse Recipe, Kneeling Moose, Phil Adventures

Homer is known as the town at the end of the road. Well, there's a long road out the end of Homer, opening into the back fold of the bay, a huge and gorgeous wilderness. I dropped Phil there yesterday with his loaded sled, jury-rigged with skate-ski poles for him to pull it by.

He's headed out for a couple days in this glorious wilderness. It'll be a combination of reconnecting with something he's loved doing every spring, and discovering new territory. He used to go on a lot of ski-camping trips in the backcountry around Anchorage all the years he lived there, come March, when there's still lots of snow but the days are luxuriously long. But the backcountry around Homer is less explored for him, and he's excited to change that.

His playground: (and this picture doesn't do justice to the mountains on the horizon and the gorgeous sweep of valley below--two river drainages).

When I was driving home, I saw this moose in our neighbors' yard. Snow had melted or gone away under this spruce tree, revealing some tired, brown grass from last year. Apparently, that was the best food available right now. Moose are browsers, not grazers, so they have to get down on their knees to eat from the ground. Pretty poignant.

I've had several requests to share recipes recently, and will work on catching up on that. First, the "Irish Moss Mousse." I threw this together from off the top off my head when we got back home and had a St Patrick's Day party to go to. We shared it with some other friends the next night, and then Tuesday was Amy's birthday party, so it got another outing then--and now it's all gone! And this is the only picture ;)

Note: this is not a "pristine purist" raw food recipe. It contains some instant coffee, and some whisky! It is very low sugar, though, and my Naturopath recently told me that whisky and other hard liquors don't bother candida (not sure why he was telling me that, lol)! But I'm sure you could sub out both of these if you didn't want them in--I'll offer some suggestions for how to do that.

I also did this in such a hurry that I used warm water to soak my irish moss and nuts. Ideally, I would have soaked the irish moss for longer, in cool water; ditto the nuts.


Irish Moss Mousse (mostly raw, vegan, gluten free, low sugar)


1 cup irish cream irish moss gel *subrecipe below
3/4 cup whisky! Or use nut milk, or water with butterscotch extract (if you can find it gluten and dairy free, if that matters to you), or water with more vanilla
1 cup young coconut meat (I get frozen young coconut meat in Anchorage. It does have a little added sugar, so I don't use it often. If you're anywhere but AK, you probably have easier access to young cocos!)

1 cup soaked cashews

1/2 cup coconut sugar (for the tawny color)--or use a half cup erythritol if you want it sugar free

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon vanilla
2 tablespoons non-gmo lecithin granules (or use sunflower lecithin)


Put everything in the blender except the lecithin. Put the ingredients in in the order listed--it blends more smoothly that way. Blend until very smooth. Test the flavor, add a little stevia or a pinch of salt if the taste isn't quite "in focus," add the lecithin, and blend again.

Pour into a 9-in pie plate and chill. I sprinkled cacao nibs on top as decoration--some coconut whipped cream or similar would have been beautiful too.


*Sub-recipe: Irish Cream Irish Moss Gel
2 cups irish moss, soaked (approximate measurement)
3/4 cup brewed coffee, cooled (you could brew up some chicory or maca instead of real coffee, or you could use a few drops of Medicine Flower coffee flavor extract in water).
1/2 cup erythritol
Blend all three together in a Vita-Mix or high speed blender, on high, until a smooth gel is obtained.

Notice, this recipe has no coconut oil or cacao butter in it! This means it doesn't set up quite as firm as a recipe with oil added--it's more of a spoon pudding really, but it also means it's way lighter! So, low or no sugar, light on the fat, and that really brings out the kick of the coffee and whisky. I couldn't eat very much of it because I'd have gotten drunk and buzzed, probably, but a little went a long way, and it received rave reviews from everyone else! If you did want it thicker/richer, you could use nut milk in place of the whisky, and add either some coconut oil (half a cup)--or even cacao butter for a chocolatey flair--or some xanthan gum (one teaspoon).

Let me know if you try it! And thanks for the encouragement to post the recipe before I forgot what I did!