Happy Raw Halloween!

It's Halloween-in-the-raw for us this year! Jon and I went to our first raw foodie conference last month, hosted by raw food guru David "Avocado" Wolfe (LongevityNow Conference), and we were both kind of surprised by how completely inspired and excited we came away from it to begin exploring the raw food diet and lifestyle.

For anyone who has looked into this a bit, you know it isn't the sort of deal you just get up one morning and decide to eat a completely raw diet from that point forward. It's quite an evolution, with a steep learning curve, really a process to work your way into.

And we're working it!

In celebration of a raw and totally healthful Halloween, I decided to try my skill (um... overstatement there... luck is more the word) at making raw chocolate from scratch. The only thing more natural would have been climbing cacao trees and picking the cacao beans myself. Might try that next year.

I'm pretty good in the kitchen, but candies aren't my thing and I've never made chocolate--even traditional chocolate--from scratch, including the tempering process. Which is important for GOOD chocolate.

(Thank goodness for YouTube.)

But it went very well! I was amazed that the final product did indeed come out looking and tasting like raw chocolate--what I was aiming for was the raw chocolate from the chocolatiers at the conference. And there were a lot of great ones there. I now understand why an organic raw chocolate bar costs $10, now that I've shopped for the ingredients.

I used raw organic cacao butter, raw cacao powder, raw cacao nibs, a little coconut nectar and honey for sweetening, and a variety of superfood additives to kick up the nutritional value:

• maca powder
• spirulina
• cayenne
• cinnamon and nutmeg
• Himalayan sea salt
• Reishi mushroom
• Ho shu wo
• Goji berries

For tempering, I kept the temperature at 105 tops. It worked beautifully! I did a variety of dipped nuts (raw brazil nuts and cashews), dipped dried mango slices, and then sort of a "bark" made of chocolate and nuts and goji berries, sprinkled on top with coconut and sea salt and cocoa nibs.

I've always loved experimenting in the kitchen, so this was a total blast!

Wishing you all a fun, safe and nutritious Halloween.