Sesame Mucho (Sesame Bars)

In my quest to make healthy energy bars, I had a few breakthroughs in the last couple of weeks. Today, I will give you a quick recipe for sesame bars - really good for trips and for fast energy before, during and after workouts. Because they contain a lot of sesame and sesame is very high in calcium, these energy bars also give you a serious calcium boost. If you eat half of the bars (7) in one day, you have around a quarter of your RDA.

You need:
- 1/4 cup of sesame
- 1 cup of cashews
- 1 1/2 cups of dates

You do:
Grind the sesame into powder in a seed or coffee grinder. Mix all the ingredients in a powerful food processor until you have a firm dough of a somewhat coarse nature. Due to variations in the degree of moistness in the dates, you need to play around with the ingredients a bit. The dough should be so firm that it stays in a shape that you give it. Knead it and form it into a flat brick and then cut off the bars with a big sharp knife. Put them on a tray and in the oven for around 20 min at 200C. After baking, you need to let them cool down for about another 20 min before you eat them or put them in a box. Enjoy.

Carocolate - Carob Bars

Chocolate cravings? In need for some comfort food or some handy sweets on your road trip or something to give your kids for Christmas?
Try carocolate (carob bars). It's yummy, and according to some of my usual testers, it's the best thing I have ever created. It's vegan (of course) and very healthy 100% HiFi food, meaning it doesn't contain any added sugar, flours, or pressed oils and is high in fiber. It's also high in calcium, which is no surprise, since carob, dates, and nuts are all high in calcium. It's also very easy to take with you on trips, or cycling workouts, that's why you can use it as energy bars.

Since it doesn't need cooking or baking, it's done in about 5 min.

You need:
- 2 cups of dried dates
- 1 1/2 cups of nuts (almonds, hazelnuts or cashews)
- 1/2 cup of carob powder
- 1 vanilla bean
- pinch of cinnamon

You do:
If you want the aroma of roasted nuts in your bars, start by roasting the nuts for a couple of minutes in a oil-free pan or in the oven. Process all the ingredients in a food processor (or with a hand-blender) into a sticky coarse dough. The finer the dough, the finer the final product. Shape the dough into bars, by pressing it down and cutting it with a knife. That's it. Enjoy!

Michael

Omega Thrice-Cream

Walnuts are one of the foods richest in omega-three fatty acids. Why not combine them with some frozen fruits and make some HiFi sugar-free vegan ice-cream?

You need:
- 1 cup of walnuts
- 4 frozen bananas
- 3 oranges
- 500g of frozen mango pieces

You do:
Peel the oranges and blend them until smooth. Add the bananas and blend again.  Stir in the frozen mango pieces and let it sit for a few minutes so that the mango can defrost and doesn't ruin your blender. Add the walnuts. If you like some walnut chunks, blend it only for a moment. If you want smooth ice-cream blend longer.

If you eat a quarter of the ice cream you just made, you have your daily requirement of essential omega 3 fatty acids, so dig in - it's good for you!

By the way: the powder used for decoration is carob powder and ginger powder.

Michael

P.S. This ice cream hasn't been engineered to be smooth right out of the freezer, so if you keep it in the freezer, you need to take it out about 10min before you eat it.

Mousse au la la! - Vegan Carob "Mousse au Chocolat"

I love carob. Carob powder is just the dried (and sometimes roasted) fruit of the carob tree ground into powder. It's very high in fiber (also very high in calcium and potassium), naturally sweet and, unlike cocoa, it doesn't contain any psychoactive substances like caffeine or theobromine.

This recipe is a sweet and creamy (and yummy) mousse without sugar, and also without milk or cream.

You need:
3 table spoons of fine carob powder
1/4 cup of soaked roasted almonds (roast them very lightly in a pan without oil or in the oven and soak them for a couple of hours in water and discard the water)
2 ripe bananas
1 small tea spoon of cinnamon
1 small piece of fresh ginger or 1 pinch of ginger powder
1 vanilla bean (scrape the inside of the bean with the edge of your knife to pull off all of the tiny black seeds that are found inside and use only them)

You do:
Mix all ingredients really well in a food processor! Chill! Enjoy.

Michael

NEW: If you like sugar-free carob recipes, check out my carob cookie recipe.