Chocolate Sustenance

I saw this awesome post from my friend Danny at Primal North (here).

Now, Danny is a huge primal weight-loss success story (not a huge person anymore, it's his success that is huge--DO NOT MISQUOTE ME on that one!!)  He teaches a low-carb ketogenic regime that works wonders for him (more on Danny another time, I guarantee it).

But what really caught my eye on this particular day was something he called chocolate blubber.  Yes, blubber.  Now, once you get past that all-too-pictographic name, you see what he's doing is making portable fat for his road travels, and to make it extra-palatable, he's making it chocolate.  Seriously.  It's super-fatty chocolate.  Can I put those words together without smiling?  They make me happy.  Chocolate.  Fat.  Fatty chocolate.

Fat is the most filling and satisfying of the 3 macro-nutrients, right?  It's what causes satiety.  Do you know what I've been snacking on at the end of my work day lately??  A mixture of butter, cocoa and home made coconut butter.  Heavy on the butter.  Because I can't seem to get enough of fat these days.  Because fat is filling and it totally squashes any hunger-craving I might be having.  For those of you that are still fat-phobic, you are soooo missing out on delicious things.

So I saw Danny's post, and I thought, hey, now this is a much prettier version than what I was doing!  He's gone and classed-up my fat-snack-food-treat.  Heck, he even makes it look good.  But the name?  Danny--we've got to change the name!!!

I wanted to make my chocolate blubber just like his.  Except I didn't have any dark chocolate in my house (the horror!!)  What I did have was a lot of cocoa (a Costco-sized container of it...) and coconut sugar.  And a hankering for seriously fatty chocolate.  So I thought....well....this is how it went down:

1/2 c coconut oil
1/2 c butter (salted is fine, heck, add some salt, you'll like it)
1/2 c cocoa powder
3-4 tsp coconut sugar (I used 2 tsp coconut sugar and 4 scoops stevia, but it imparts an aftertaste--stick with real coconut sugar)

Melt all together, pour into a silicone meatloaf pan or into muffin silicone cups and set in fridge.  Let it set.

Snack on that deliciousness.  A 1" square or two will fill you.  I swear.

If I added chopped bacon, or chopped jerky, I could call it chocolate pemmican.  Mmmm.

But I will call this....Chocolate Sustenance.  It just sounds better than blubber.

OMG Chocogasm Crepes

Yes I did just make crepes and fill them with chocolate-almond butter-banana goodness and make crazy moaning sounds the whole time I ate them.  No, we did not videotape it.  It would not have been appropriate for the content of this blog.....

So, what happens when you don't have any almond flour in the house?  You find a different way of making crepes, that's all.  These were dead-simple.  But you do need a really good non-stick frypan for crepes.  This is not a job for cast iron.  Not unless you want a crazy mess and a lot of frustration.  Well, it just so happens that I bought myself a new ceramic-coated pan last week to film the episode of Know it All, and I only paid $30 at The Real Canadian Superstore.  It is a fabulous pan, and the price is just spectacular for ceramic-coated.

This was the quietest breakfast I think I ever served (with the exception of my moaning, of course)  I don't know how much we all chewed the crepes.  Of course we chewed the bacon--that would have been crazy-dangerous!

Ingredients:

Crepes

• 6 eggs
• 1 banana (can use a frozen one)
• 2 Tbs tapioca starch
• 2 Tbs coconut flour
• 1/3 c coconut milk
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• pinch salt
• 1 tsp vanilla
• butter, for frying
• waxed paper

Filling

• 3/4 cup dark chocolate chips
• 1/3 cup almond butter
• up to 1/4 cup coconut milk (to thin sauce)

Method:

First make your filling because this all comes together pretty fast.  mix the chocolate chips and nut butter in a microwave safe bowl and heat for 30 seconds.  Stir, and add in coconut milk as needed to make the sauce thin enough to spread.  Because the crepes are delicate, you want the sauce to be almost thin enough to drizzle.  Set aside.  Try not to eat too much of it while you prepare the crepes.

Combine all the crepe ingredients in a food processor or the biggest cup of your magic bullet; blend well.

Heat skillet to medium heat.  When pan is hot, add a dollop of butter and lift pan to swirl around, coating the whole bottom of the pan.  Pour a small amount of the batter into the pan and lift the pan, swirling it, to spread the batter all over the base of the pan.  Set it back down and watch it bubble and set.  As soon as it begins to brown a bit around the edges, carefully slide a spatula under it and flip it over.  They are a bit delicate, so be gentle.  If you're nervous, slide the whole thin onto a plate and then invert the plate over the pan to flip it that way.  Cook for a few seconds more on the other side.  Do not overcook them.

Tear off a square of waxed paper bigger than the crepe.  Lay the paper on your counter and flip the crepe out onto it.  Spread about 2 small spoonfulls around on the crepe, getting as close to the edges as you can.  Lifting the waved paper on one side to help you, roll the crepe into a cigar shape.  Then roll the waxed paper  around the crepe and set it aside.  

Move onto the next crepe by staring with a fresh dollop of butter in the pan.  Always start with a dollop of butter.

Keep going until you run out of batter.  I managed to get 9 crepes out of this mixture.

Serve with bacon if you have a handy-dandy spouse to cook the bacon for you while you make the crepes.  Listen to the sound of silence as your children eat without chewing.

Then ask them again if they really miss grains.

PepperMint Patties

Yes, this is what I made.  It was Easter, and I wanted chocolate MORE THAN ANYTHING IN THIS WORLD.  Ok, maybe the time of the month had something to do with it too...  Don't you love chocolate and mint together?  Ok, peanut butter and chocolate is even better, but I'd just devoured a batch of Balanced Bites Almond-Butter-Cups.  I was boldened after that little experiment, but wanted it to be alot simpler.  So I thought--if I use unsweetened chocolate, and just add a dab of slightly sweet chocolate, wouldn't I get dark chocolate??  Like REALLY dark chocolate?  Because actual Bakers dark chocolate is alot more expensive than doing it this way and I'm all about keeping it affordable.  And this is sooooo simple to make.  A quick note--I use a double-boiler for a lot of things like this--it allows you to keep the melted chocolate warm and pliable while you're still working with it.  But if you don't have one, a stainless bowl placed over a pot will do the same thing.  And if you have neither of those, you can always melt the chocolate in the microwave, just be careful not to burn it and you may have to re-heat it a few times.

These are alright to keep on your countertop when they're done, but I really recommend keeping them in the fridge.  I found the chocolate "bloomed" on my countertop, and the mint is stronger and sweeter from the fridge.  But do try to make them as thin as possible.  I made 12 with this recipe, and they were as thick as a peanut-butter cup, and very hard to bite down on (so I chopped mine up into  small bite-sized pieces and just let it melt on the tongue....)

You will need:

baking sheet
cupcake liners
double-boiler

Ingredients:

8 squares Bakers Unsweetened Chocolate
3 squares Bakers Semi-Sweet Chocolate
1/4 c coconut creme
2 tsp mint extract
2 tsp honey

Method:

First, prepare thy self!!  Measure out coconut creme in a small microwave-safe dish.  On a baking sheet, lay out at least 12 paper cupcake liners.In a double-boiler, melt chocolate. 

Once the chocolate is melted, measure out half of it into the paper cupcake liners.  I just used a metal spoon and poured a spoonfull into each liner.  make sure it fills the bottom of the liner; you may have to smear it/spread it around a little.  Leave the rest of the chocolate on the double-boiler.  It should stay warm enough.

Place your cookie sheet with the paper muffin liners on it into the freezer for five minutes.  While this is freezing, melt your coconut creme and then mix in the mint extract and honey.  Remove the frozen chocolate from the freezer, and measure out a small teaspoon of mint into the middle of each chocolate bottom.  Use it all up.  Do press it somewhat flat, but do not spread it all the way to the edges.  Put it back in the freezer for another 5 minutes.

Now use up the rest of the chocolate on the frozen mint and chocolate base.  Remember to keep it as thin as you can or they become very hard to bite down on.

Slide your cookie sheet back in the freezer to set everything firm.  Once set, you can move it all into a tupperware container and into the fridge.

Voila.  It really was that simple.

Now, if you'd rather have an almond-butter-cup, just switch the filling to almond butter with a splash of vanilla and honey.  But you won't be able to stop eating them if you do this.  Sure, there's barely any sweetener in this, but its still a treat, not a meal....