Dehydrator Diaries 3/10 - Raw chocolate cookies!

We like to cook and create most of our food, so that means a lot of cooking/preparing.  What about snacks?  That easy box of crackers, bag of chips, box of cereal...not really present in our house.  Instead we whir up our dehydrator and get busy!

I try to do the dehydrator thing once a week, filling up all 9 trays.  I feel this is the most efficient way to use energy (both mine and the dehydrators!).  This week we made another version of our raw crackers.  We used the pulp from carrot/orange/kale juice.  I wasn't sure how the orange would work out with the other seasonings, but it's quite nice!  Not too strong, but there are definitely citrus undertones.

A staple in the house is our raw cereal.  It's the girls' favorite breakfast.  F is actually learning the recipe and reminds me to add certain ingredients when we're making it.  I'll do an in depth post later with the recipe and everything.  We eat it dry, with milk (almond, soy or hemp), and use it to crumble over coconut yogurt, or hemp ice cream. 

You'll notice a small finger swipe at the top...

that's because the girls love this stuff before it's been dryed...it's kind of like raw oatmeal!

Now, those of you who know me well, know I'm not really a chocolate girl.  I mean, I'll eat it, but I prefer other sweets.  My daughter had been asking me for a "chocolatey" treat for a few days and I stumbled upon a recipe in the latest LA Yoga magazine.  There's a million raw chocolate dessert recipes out there, but this one looked simple enough and we already had all the ingredients.  Well, almost all...I did change it up a bit.

I forgot to take pictures of the balls we rolled, but here's the finger patted cookies!

RAW Chocolate Cookies
2 cups chopped dates
1/2 cup carob powder
1/2 cup cacao powder
2 cups ground nuts (unsoaked, mixed raw almonds and raw brazil nuts)
1/2 cup cashew butter

I threw everything into the food processor and processed until a sort of dough formed.  I had to add a few more dates.  I took 1/2 the dough and just rolled them into 1 in balls, popped them into an airtight container, and took them to a parent meeting that night.  The other 1/2 of the dough we patted into little cookie shapes and set on the dehydrator tray.  I dehydrated them at 115 for about 5 hours.  This made them a little more dense and chewy, which the girls liked better than the balls.
All in all I think they are good.  If I make them again I'll probably up it to 3 cups of dates and only 1 1/2 cups of ground nuts to create more of a chewy tootsie roll type of treat.  I think I'll try using macadamia nuts instead...they get so creamy when they're ground up.
Let me know if you make them and how they turn out!

So here from the top we have our crackers, our cookies (we added 2 more trays) and our cereal.

What's in your dehydrator this week?!?!