Tasty Turtles in Ten Minutes!

Although I still drink green smoothies nearly every day, they've become much simpler. I often add only three ingredients to some water: 

a big handful of kale, a banana, and an apple.

 Sometimes I crave some old fashioned junk food. Since I know that's not an option open to me anymore, I try to create a substitute. Lately I've been craving turtles. It could be the video that my friend Wendidee put on youtube titled,

 "Rawbin saves a turtle", 

but I really think it had to do with Valentine's Day and all those boxes at the end of the supermarket aisles. The idea suddenly came to me. I realized it could be very simple. 

Walnuts? 

Check. 

Dates? 

Check. 

The ingredients for raw chocolate???

 Oh, yeah!!! 

I tossed a handful of walnuts on a plate, pitted some soft caramel dates, mixed up a batch of raw chocolate sauce and plopped it on top. 

There it was...

The worlds largest chocolate turtle. 

I took a picture, posted it to Twitter, admired it a moment, then ate it all! 

Well, what else could I do? It was a single serving!

Hah! My hubs is on facebook now and noticed my Twitter feed to Facebook and suddenly he's commenting on my picture. "I want a turtle"

Ruh-Roh. 

Okay, well it only takes 10 minutes, I can do that again, right? 

But this time I'll make the chocolate a little thicker, make the turtles a little smaller, and I'll take a few pictures along the way.

So, you take a custard cup, set it in a bowl of warm water like a double boiler, adding more warm water as it cools.

 Put chopped up pieces of raw cocoa butter in the custard cup to melt.

 

-1 Tb raw cocoa butter  (melted)

-1 Tb virgin coconut oil

-1 Tb raw agave nectar

-1/2 tsp vanilla

-1/4 tsp celtic sea salt

-while keeping it warm, stir in 2 Tb raw cacao powder

I started with good juicy fresh dates. Barhi is my favorite date right now. 

I ordered 35 pounds of assorted dates from thedatepeople and sold off much of it to raw friends. I still have enough left over for plenty of raw treats.

 Take 10 pitted dates.If you have dry, hard dates, you may want to moisten them. I put them in a cup, pour warm water on them, immediately drink the date water and set the cup aside. This softens them just a bit.

I place the walnuts on a piece of wax paper.

I put a little dab of warm chocolate on the walnuts, pressing dates on top, using half the chocolate mixture. Then take second half of chocolate and divide it among the last of the dates. Eat one to check for good flavor. Place in the fridge to set. By the time you've put the dishes away, your turtles should be cool. Eat another one to test it's temperature. If they aren't cool enough, put them back in the fridge. Repeat. 

Note that by the time I took the last picture, 

there were already 3 turtles missing. 

By the time my hubs came home from work, 

there were only 4 left. 

I ate one and handed him the last 3.