Spring Colors and Brownie Bite Recipe

Happy Weekend! After six nights of zero-to-three hours of sleep and an ultimatum from my naturopath yesterday, I slept a full night last night! As a result, I'm feeling kinda groggy today, go figure...
I'm finally going to share the recipe for those brownie bites I mentioned so many times.

Phil got back safe and thrilled from his ski trip. He had one day of glorious sunshine, and one day that it looked like this.

Changeable, our version of spring weather.
That gray morning, my home-alone breakfast gave me the feeling of spring, with its vibrant colors...

A shredded carrot, a very small sliced orange, and a half tablespoon of goji berries, soaked overnight. So juicy, so pleasing on the palate!

So, those brownie bites! I realized they would be very easy to make sugar free as well. so I'll provide options for that. Even in the not-sugar-free version, they involve a lot of very dark chcoolate and not a lot of sweetener, so they're really not very sweet even then. They're not what a milk chocolate lover would like--they're serious, hard-core, bitter chocolate. They do involve raisins, though, and I just adore the chocolate/raisin combo.
Brownie Bites (raw, vegan gluten free)
1/2 cup raisins, soaked ahead of time (reserve soak water) OR for sugar free version  3/4 cup "chia sweet" (see this old post for the whole concept)
2 cups carrot pulp  (or use grated carrot, squeezing out some of the excess moisture
3 oz 100% cacao chocolate, finely grated
1 cup cacao nibs (you can use 2 cups cacao nibs or 6 oz of 100% dark chocolate as you prefer)
1 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
1/4 cup macadamia nut butter (or other nut butter--I used homemade) (edited to add this that I forgot to include in my initial post!)
1/4 cup maple syrup (omit this if doing the sugar free version)
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon cayenne (spices optional)
Put the carrot pulp, coconut and chocolate/cacao into a food processor with the S-blade and whiz around until incorporated.
Add the maple syrup and raisins OR the chia-sweet, and the vanilla extract. If using the raisins, start by just adding the raisins without their soaking water, and gradually add the water with the motor running if the mixture seems too dry.
Add the salt, and spices if using, and process to a smooth, moist dough.

Tip the dough out on to a teflex-lined dehydrator sheet and form into a square about 9x9 and half an inch thick.

Dehydrate around 24 hours--start out at 145, then reduce to 110 after the first hour.
Cut into pieces--in 40 pieces, they worked out at 35 calories each with the raisins and maple.

I still have lots of these in the freezer at home, so when I get home I'll take a better picture of one! Later--I'm not sure this is a better picture, but it was the best I could do:

They are super-dark-chocolatey, as I said before, and despite the dehydration, they remain moist with that alluring not-quite-crunchiness of the nibs and carrot.
So, this may not be for everyone, but to me it's really special. The first time I made these, as I mentioned before, I found them sinfully irresisible. This time, they're not quite as wonderful, and I think it's because I didn't use as many raisins this time.