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The chocolate making workshops this weekend were an amazing success!

Much fun had by all. I met some lovely new people and saw dear old friends too. Everybody made beautiful things and we all went home happy and buzzy!

I am going to post pictures in the next 24 hours.

When I got home last night from the afternoon workshop, I decided to get to work preparing festive food to take away with me at Christmas.

I made my own recipe for raw mince pies:

Soak and dehydrate 2 cups of buckwheat (soak for around 6 hours, rinse well, spread on dehydrator tray and dry for about 8 hours)

Soak 1 cup of cashews (you could use almonds, macadamia nuts or sunflower seeds)

Grind or blend the buckwheat to a flour. Next blend the nuts or seeds of your choice to a fine paste, mix with the flour and add honey, yacon or agave to taste. (I used raw local honey, not too much as filling will be very sweet) Add a pinch of salt too, to bring out the flavour.

Then press the ‘dough’ into silicone moulds, muffin trays or whatever you fancy, you could always make one big mince pie, however, I prefer to do smaller ones so I can freeze half the batch if I need to)

Dehydrate for 12 hours, taking them out of the moulds halfway.

Next for the filling. Combine 1/2 cup of raisins, half cup of sultanas, ½ cup of goji berries, 1 tsp nutmeg, 4 tsp cinnamon, 1 of mixed spice. Marinate this mixture overnight in the juice of 2 oranges, 1 lemon and zest of one orange and tbs raw honey or agave. Once you feel the flavours have been infused long enough, fill your pies (I will not do this until I am ready to serve them, as they can go soggy!)

Top your pies with a cream made from your nut of choice. I am using 1 cup of macadamias, blended with 1 ½ cups water, a pinch of vanilla, 1 tsp honey and some orange zest to top it off!

I also made a loaf to have on Xmas day. This consisted of 6 layers! I made it up as I went along, but roughly, here it is:

Grind up some flax seeds, then, separate this mix into 4 bowls. To the 1st bowl I added blended broccoli, spinach and garlic, the 2nd, blended red pepper and chilli, the 3^rd, blended beetroot and cumin, the 4^th, blended carrot. I spread a layer of each, one on top of the other, in a silicone mould. The 5^th layer was thinly sliced beetroot, then, I topped it off with thinly sliced mushrooms, marinated in tamari. I decorated it with pumpkin seeds, nutritional yeast and crystal manna. It needs to be dehydrated for at least 24 hours. I shall serve this with some kind of warm mushroom gravy, or perhaps a warm spicy tomato sauce.

I had some left over soaked dates from the workshop (I use these to make truffles) So, I blended them with coconut chips, stirred in some carob, maca, Fo-Ti powder and reishi mushrooms. I added a dollop of raw honey to sweeten. I filled my silicone muffin trays with the mixture, decorating each one with bee pollen and coconut chips. Dehydrate them for 12 hours. I call these ‘Happy buns’. Nice straight from the dehydrator, for breakfast!

Xmas preparations are going well, however, I’m so looking forward to a few days of doing very little. Reading, long walks, Poirot and Miss. Marple Xmas special!!!

So, watch this space for Workshop photos, coming soon! Also, new dates will be announced early Jan!