Mortar and Pestle

So, I picked up a marble mortar and pestle at Marshall's for 9.99. I had eyed it a few times before and considered getting one for "energy" reasons. In macrobiotics (something I have studied a bit), they encourage using manual vs. electric devices to prepare food, for "energy" reasons. To be honest, I have no idea what I believe on this matter, but I'm open to it. I tried the mortar and pestle a couple times to grind my raw cocoa nibs and it did a fine job in comparison to the coffee grinder, it just took about 5-10 minutes longer and a little bit of labor. I can see myself using this often to grind herbs and spices. Its much easier to clean than the coffee grinder and beautiful enough that I would leave it out on an open shelf, instead of deep in a cabinet somewhere, which makes it more convenient to use. Also, the extra time is not an issue if I grind stuff while browsing the internet or watching television, or just sitting around (which I do a lot of). It actually makes me feel more productive!

A time to buy!

I enjoy shopping... however I am incredibly indecisive at times. Especially with online shopping because it feels much more final to me and the items aren't tangible before purchase. None the less, online shopping has become more and more prevalent in my purchasing experience due to the fact that I live in a super small town and getting some items locally is either impossible or prohibitively inconvenient.



I have filled and emptied my online shopping cart more times than makes sense and now I realize it would be better to wait until payday so I can pay down my credit card before making any additional purchases...

I am going to limit my purchases to these 3 items: citric acid, emulsifying wax, shea butter

Hopefully, I will not be strayed between now and then...

RAW chocolate smoothie

Whenever I am totally bored with preparing food, which is sadly pretty often, one thing that always perks me up is experimenting with vegan and raw recipes or even coming up with my own. I'm not religious enough to commit to either of these lifestyle choices 100% of the time, but I flirt with the idea often enough to get my husband all up in arms.



Typically, I make fresh coconut milk 1-2 times a week. I'm not sure why I do it so often because usually I am trying to figure out ways to use it before it goes bad. Today was no exception to that routine. On top of that I had a bag of raw cocoa nibs and some medjool dates that had been sitting in my cupboard ignored for longer than I care to think about.



Usually, if I have a breakfast smoothie it consists of fresh coconut milk and frozen bananas and possibly whatever other fruit I may have on hand, but I used the last of my frozen bananas 2 days ago and also I have a raging sinus infection that has been marked with violent enough sneezing sessions that I believe I actually threw my neck out during one of them, if that is even possible... The bananas come into play in that they seem to make me more snotty, so yeah I won't be re-upping on them.



So I decided to soak the dates, grind the nibs finely, and whir it up in my blender. Also, I want to note that I used 1.5 cups of the cream (the stuff that separates to the top) of the coconut milk, in hopes that it would make the smoothie thicker. I used 2 heaping tablespoons of the nibs, and about 7 pieces of dates with the pit removed.


After whirring in my blender, I finally accepted the fact that the nibs powder wasn't going to dissolve completely and while the taste of the smoothie was great the texture was grainy. I immediately added this experience to the list of reasons justifying the purchase of a $400 blender, ya'll know which one I'm talking about. No really though, I must figure out a way to make this recipe work and still maintain its RAW-ness. I'll update when I do.