Chocolate Cake with Strawberry Icing

Happy Spring and Happy Birth to Virginia Jean Giopponi, we’re so excited to meet you <3<3<3 We love this chocolate cake with strawberry icing so much. If you love it, you might also really enjoy our chocolate cake with hazelnut frosting.

We have not yet tried a gluten free version of this although we love this gluten-free cake mix, and it would be great with our strawberry icing. While the box mix says cupcakes, it also works great in a cake pan. To make this recipe you would likely want to have two boxes so you could have the two tier cake with frosting in-between.

Pans needed: 2 6-inch round cake pans (if you only have one you can make this in batches it will just take twice as long).

Serves: 4-6 servings

Time: 1 hr

Ingredients

For the cake:

3/4 cup + 2 tbsp all purpose flour

3/4 cup coconut sugar

1/4 cup + 2 tbsp cocoa powder, plus extra for powering the pans

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp vanilla powder (option to replace with vanilla extract)

1/2 tsp salt

1 room temperature egg

1/2 cup almond milk

1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar

1/4 cup neutral oil

1/2 cup hot coffee

For the icing:

3/4 cup soaked cashews

2 dates

squeeze of lime juice

Lime zest

1 tsp vanilla powder (option to replace with vanilla extract)

3/4 cup pureed strawberries (about 8 large strawberries), plus extra strawberries for topping the cake

1/4 tsp - 1 tsp agave (depending on your sweetness preference)

1/4 tsp salt

up to 1/2 water depending on how thick you want the icing to be. Less water is more fudgy, more water is fluffier. The puree is pretty wet so you may not need any water at all

This cake can be made by hand or with a mixer. We use a mixer because we have one.

Pre-heat the oven to 350 F and make hot coffee. Brush oil into your cake pans and add 1 tbsp of cocoa powder and shake until bottom and sides are coated. Mix the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, vanilla powder, salt). In a separate bowl or in a 2 cup liquid measuring cup combine the almond milk, apple cider vinegar, neutral oil, and the egg. Break the yolk up, but no need to whisk the egg. Add this to the dry ingredients and mix until just combined, careful not to over mix. While you are stirring, add the hot coffee and watch it transform into liquid, smooth, velvety cake batter.

Divide the batter between the two cake pans as equally as possible. Bake in a pre-heated oven for about 30 minutes or until you can touch the center of the cake and it bounces back, however it should not be firm and should still have a slight wobble to it. Remove from the oven and let the cakes cool for about 5 minutes.

Wearing hot mitts, pick up the cake and tilt to about 45 degrees. Using the palm of your hand (in the hot mitt) pat the side of the cake pan and then turn the cake pan. Repeat this until you’ve tapped all the way around the pan. Next turn the pan upside-down, turning the cake onto a wire rack, clean counter top, or plate. Then lift the pan off of the cake. Flip your cake over so that the cake is right side up and let it cool completely before frosting.

Drain your cashews and add them, with the rest of the icing ingredients, to the bowl of a food processor. Blend, scraping down regularly until you have a smooth creamy icing. If you find you need to add water, add it 1 tbsp at a time until you have the consistency that you like. The less water you use the more dense it will be, the more water you add the more fluffy the icing will be.

Once your cakes have cooled, place the first cake onto a plate. Using a serrated knife, cut the rounded top of the cake off, just enough to create a flat surface. Generously spread icing onto the top of the first layer. Put the second layer on top, cutting off the top for a cleaner look or leaving it on for a rounded top. Spread icing over the top and sides. To get a smooth finish on your icing, use an icing spatula or knife to spread the icing onto the cake. In between strokes, wipe the icing off the spatula or knife and rinse in hot water. The hot knife will smooth the icing more effectively and stop the knife from creating a peak when you lift it off the icing.

Optionally top the cake with fresh cut strawberries. Cut into slices and enjoy!

Pierogies

This recipe makes a whole mess of pierogis.  After boiling them, if you want to freeze them, you can do this on a greased cookie sheet or a piece of parchment paper. Then once frozen, transfer to a plastic freezer bag. Do not freeze them all together in one bag without first freezing on a cookie sheet or they will clump together and be impossible to separate.

Our favorite way to cook them from frozen is to fry in a pan on medium heat and they get a bit crispy on each side.

In these photos, we served the pierogis with roasted broccoli, caramelized onions, and some vegan butter. That’s not included in this base pierogi recipe, but it is delicious! Would love to hear what you serve these with in the comments.

Serves: about 10

Time: 2 hours

Ingredients

For the Pasta Dough:

3 cups all purpose flour plus more for dusting

1 cup water

1 egg

2 tsp olive oil

1 tsp salt

For the Potato Filling:

1 3/4 lb Idaho potatoes

1 head of roasted garlic

salt

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If you haven’t roasted the head of garlic, do so now. Pre-heat the oven to 350 F. There are many ways to roast garlic. Anne cuts the top of the head and pours some olive oil over the garlic and then puts this in a garlic roaster in the oven (if you don’t have a garlic roaster you wrap the head in tin foil). Camille peels the garlic cloves and puts them in a cast iron pan with olive oil and puts the pan in the oven to roast. Roast the garlic until golden brown (about 20 minutes if the garlic is bare in a cast iron pan and about 40 minutes in a garlic roaster).

Peel the potatoes (we don’t often peel potatoes, but for this recipe it makes the texture more delightful for us) and cut into large chunks. Boil the potatoes in a pot of very salty water until tender. Once tender, strain and mash in a bowl with the roasted garlic and season with salt.

While the potatoes are boiling, put the flour and salt from the dough ingredients in a large shallow bowl.  Make a well in the center and put water, egg, and oil in well.  Mix the liquid into the flour slowly until a ragged ball forms.  Knead the dough on a flour dusted surface for about 8 minutes, until smooth, elastic, and supple, dusting with flour as needed to prevent sticking.  Overturn a bowl on the dough and let sit for 20 minutes.

To shape the Pierogis:

Fill a large pot with water and put it on the stove on high to boil.

Roll out the dough until thin on a cutting board dusted with flour (if you are lucky enough to own a pasta roller this is when to use it). Cut rounds about 3" in diameter (I use a cookie cutter, but a wine glass would work as well).  Put between one half and one tsp of potato filling in the center of each round. Wet the edge of the dough with a wet finger. Fold the dough over the potato, forming a pocket and tuck the corners in. Seal closed with your fingers and then crimp the edges with a fork. Once all the pierogis are shaped, drop them one at a time into the boiling water, about ten pierogis can cook at once.  Stir the pot with a slotted spoon once at the beginning of cooking to prevent sticking, and allow to cook about 3 minutes.  The pierogis should be floating when you remove them from the water.  Drain them.

Note: if it feels good to you, you can also start cooking some of the pierogis before you’ve finished shaping so that you are shaping and cooking pierogis at the same time. If this feels hard, feel free to ignore.

Now you can freeze these for later, or cook up whatever you want to serve with them and enjoy!

Spinach Waffles and Eggs

We love these waffles for breakfast, lunch, and dinner! Although the recipe is written for spinach, feel free to use kale, collards, chard, or beet greens and if you have less than the recipe calls for that’s fine — we love it with 2 cups and it’s equally delicious with 1 cup.

Serves: 4

Time: 1 hr

Ingredients

1/2 lb cremini mushrooms

black pepper

olive oil

For the waffles:

1 cup all purpose flour (optional Gluten Free: We recommend Minimalist Baker’s Flour Mix with Xanthan Gum)

1/2 cup oats blended to a rough flour (gf option, option to use oat flour)

1 tbsp baking powder

1 tbsp coconut sugar

1/2 tsp salt

3 eggs

1/2 cup olive oil

1 1/2 cup almond milk (or non-dairy milk of your choice)

2 cups chopped spinach

For the scrambled eggs (substitute tofu if you like):

4 large eggs

1/4 cup almond milk

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp nutritional yeast

Serve with:

Sriracha (optional)

Almond ricotta (We like Kite Hill)

Vegan butter (We like Miyoko’s) (optional)

Maple syrup (optional)

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Preheat waffle iron.

Mix the dry ingredients for the waffles in a large bowl. Mix the eggs, olive oil, and non-dairy milk in a smaller bowl. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Stir to just combine. Add the spinach to the batter and fold in. Leave to rest while the waffle iron preheats. When it is hot start making waffles. Anne’s waffle maker makes two large waffles with four quarters with this amount of batter. Their waffle iron does not need be greased, but feel free to add oil if yours needs it. These waffles may take longer to cook than a standard waffle because the spinach releases a lot of liquid. We like to check on our waffles once the steam dissipates, but we often cook them longer because we like a crisp waffle.

While the waffles are cooking, cut the mushrooms into thin strips and sauté with some olive oil for about 15 minutes until soft and slightly browned. In the last five minutes of cooking, pepper the mushrooms generously.

Scramble as much egg as you need for the current meal, we like an egg per serving. Whisk all the “for the scrambled eggs” ingredients in a small bowl. Preheat a large frying pan with some olive oil to medium or medium high heat. Pour in the egg and scramble to your liking.

Anne and Camille assemble this in different ways. Feel free to try one of ours, or make your own!

Anne skips the butter and layers the waffles with first mushrooms, then the scrambled eggs, and then sprinkles the ricotta cheese and tops with hot sauce. This gives a spicy/creamy effect as the hot sauce and the cheese interact.

Camille butters the waffles, then spreads the ricotta cheese thickly on top of that and tops with mushrooms and eggs. She often skips the hot sauce and sometimes tops with maple syrup. This is a buttery, creamy, sweet, and savory experience.

We would love to hear some of your creations in the comments. Enjoy!

Gluten Free Broccoli Quiche

This gluten free, dairy free take on cheddar broccoli quiche is divine. The crust is from our cheese cracker recipe, and it pairs perfectly with the sweet onions and cheesy broccoli.

One of my favorite things about this quiche is how easy it is to switch out ingredients. Don’t have broccoli on hand? Add whatever roasted veggies you do have. Obsessed with pickles this week (why yes, yes I am)? Try adding some of the pickle juice into your cheese recipe for a fun variation on the cheddar flavor.

This meal goes great served with kombucha mimosas (we mix kombucha and orange juice together to create a low-alcohol mimosa). It also tastes amazing with freshly squeezed pomegranate juice.

Serves: 4-6

Time: 2 hrs (1 hr 15 active)

Ingredients

5 cups of bite sized broccoli florets (about 1.5 lbs or 2 small heads of broccoli)

Olive oil

1/2 onion

5 cloves garlic

3/4 cup cashew cheese

4 eggs

3/4 cup almond milk

1 1/2 tsp salt, divided

1/4 tsp pepper

pinch of red pepper flakes

For the pie crust:

1/2 cup almond flour

3 tbsp coconut flour

1/4 cup oats

3 tbsp cornmeal

1/4 tsp baking powder

2 tbsp nutritional yeast

1/2 tsp mustard powder

pinch of cayenne

3/4 tsp salt

3 tbsp of cold vegan butter, we like this one: Miyoko’s Vegan Butter

1 cup water

8-10 ice cubes

1 1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar

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Pre-heat oven to 350 F. Put a cup of cold water, ice, and 1 1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar in a bowl together.

Put the oats and the cornmeal in a blender or food processor and blend until it becomes floury. Add all the dry ingredients including what you’ve just blended into a big bowl. Add the cold butter into the dry ingredients and cut the butter into the flour.

There are many ways to cut the butter into the flour. You can use knives, a pastry cutter, or your hand. We use our hands to quickly pinch the butter into the dry ingredients. You should have butter chunks about the size of a pea. Do not keep going until the butter feels sandy, this is too far. You need to do this step fairly quickly so that you don’t melt the butter with your hands.

Once you’ve cut the butter into the flour mixture, add the 3-5 tbsp of the water and vinegar mixture 1 tbsp at a time tossing with a fork in between each tablespoon. Eventually this will start to come together. When more than half of your mixture has come together you can start to smoosh with your hands to try and make a ball. Continue to add one tablespoon of water at a time until all the dough sticks together in a nice ball. You do need this to stay cool, however because this is gluten-free you don’t need to worry about ‘overworking’ the dough. You will have a decent amount of water left over, and that is okay.

Once this comes together, put your dough on a plate in the fridge and let rest for 20 minutes.

Cut broccoli into florets. Thinly slice the onions and finely mince the garlic. Spread the broccoli on cookie sheet and roast with olive oil and 1/2 tsp salt for 45 minutes or until starting to brown. Stir every 15 minutes.

Press the chilled pie crust into your pie pan as you would a graham cracker crust. Press it into the corners of the pan and up the sides until you have covered the inside of the pan with dough. Cook for 15 minutes so that the pie crust has been partially baked, and then remove.

Next, heat a frying pan with a bit of olive oil. Once the oil is hot, add the onions, and 1/2 tsp of salt, and cook stirring frequently until caramelized (this takes about 20 minutes). Mince the garlic and add to the onions. Cook for another 5 minutes.

Put eggs, milk, 1/2 tsp of salt and the pepper in a bowl and whisk until the yolks are fully broken up and you have one yellow color. Feel free to whisk for longer then you think necessary.

Add the roasted broccoli into the pie crust and spoon dollops of cashew cheese onto the broccoli and smooth around. Add caramelized onions and garlic. Next pour the egg mixture over all of it and the egg mixture should just cover the vegetables. Bake for about 45 minutes or until a knife goes in and comes out clean.

You can eat this fresh out of the oven, but we like it best if you let it cool for about 15 minutes. Slice and enjoy!

Breaded Eggplant

We love eggplant so much and all year we look forward to eggplants being in season. In celebration, this is the first of many eggplant centered posts!

Makes: 2 1/2 sheet pan’s worth of cutlets

Time: 2 hrs

Ingredients:

3 medium eggplants, cut into 1/4” coins

kosher salt

1/2 cup cornstarch

1/2 tsp salt

4 pieces of toast or two cups of bread crumbs (a gluten free bread or crumb will work here)

1/2 cup oats gluten-free option

3/4 cup sunflower seeds

2 tbsp garlic powder

1/4 cup nutritional yeast

1 tbsp salt, if your sunflower seeds are salted, you will need less salt.

3/4 tsp pepper, divided

3 or 4 eggs

olive oil

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Cut the eggplants into round slices between 1/4 and 1/2 inch in thickness.  We leave the skins on, but if you want less fiber, skin the eggplant before cutting. Layer them in a colander salting each layer generously. Leave eggplant to drain about 20 minutes. This will pull the moisture from the eggplant allowing it to cook faster and get sweeter. During this time, prepare the bread crumb mixture and pre-heat the oven to 375 F.

Rip your toast into chunks before putting it into the food processor with the oats.  Blend them until they are sandy with slightly larger chunks.  Add the sunflower seeds, garlic powder, nutritional yeast, salt, and 1/2 tsp pepper.  Blend until the majority of the sunflower seeds have been cut at least once, but not so far that the mixture looks homogeneous. Leave some sunflower seed chunks. Once the eggplant has been salted for 20 minutes it should have released some moisture that you will be able to see on the surface. Press the eggplant between kitchen towels to remove the moisture and some of the salt. Assemble a workstation with a shallow bowl of beaten eggs, a shallow bowl of cornstarch mixed with 1/2 tsp of salt and 1/4 tsp pepper, and a shallow bowl of the breadcrumb mixture. Dip the eggplant in the cornstarch, then the egg, and then breadcrumbs. Start with two eggs and add more as necessary to coat all the eggplant.

Lay the coated eggplant out on baking sheets. Using a pastry brush, dab oil onto both sides of each eggplant. If you don’t have a pastry brush you can use a spoon to gently put a bit of oil onto the eggplant at a time. Bake in the oven for 1 hr flipping every 20 minutes.

The photo we’re sharing today is these babies served with pasta, tomato sauce, and Kite Hill Almond Ricotta.  It was fantastically delicious, but far from the only way we like to eat them!  We like to make a big batch of these on the weekend and eat them during the week when it is hard to fit in cooking with work.  We love them on a bagel as a sandwich, or just eating them as a snack.  We have also cut them up and thrown them on top of a salad.

Chocolate Cake with Hazelnut Frosting

Hi, this is Anne writing the intro.

Today would have been my father’s 104th birthday so we are sharing a chocolate cake recipe with you all to celebrate. When I was a kid, probably about the age of 12, my father started putting a box of cake mix and a jar of icing at my place at the table the morning of his birthday. He loved cake, but I suppose he didn’t think that he should have to bake his own birthday cake. So from a young age it was my job to make sure he had a cake each year for his birthday, and he would remind me with the box of cake mix. My father passed away 12 years ago now, and the first year after he was gone his birthday rolled around and I was in the middle of a move and felt like I couldn’t do justice to the day. But a few days later I baked a chocolate cake in his memory. It’s now a tradition for me. I bake a cake on my father’s birthday, and over the years I have developed this recipe for a chocolate cake with chocolate hazelnut frosting. When I first started to modify the recipe so that it would feel better in my body I felt like I was betraying him. I worried that he wouldn’t approve of the changes, but over time I realized that the cake isn’t for him. It’s for me, a way to recognize my grief. Grief is a funny thing. For years, every day I wished that I could call my father, hug him, bake for him, cook for him, or just know he was still in the world. There were many times when something exciting happened in my life and I thought I should call him, before remembering that was not an option for me anymore. These days I still miss him, I still love him, but I go weeks or months without feeling the pain of his loss. I make a point of remembering him every year on his birthday with this cake, and I hope you will join me in celebrating this day.

This recipe calls for roasted hazelnuts and coconut sugar. If you can only find raw hazelnuts you can roast them at home in the oven in about 15-20 minutes. Put them on a baking sheet in a 350 F oven and give them a stir or shake every five minutes until the skins are darker brown. Coconut sugar is sold under multiple names including coconut palm sugar and brown coconut sugar. Any variation would work in this recipe including replacing with cane sugar, date sugar, or maple sugar.

Pans needed: 2 6-inch round cake pans (if you only have one you can make this in batches it will just take twice as long).

Serves: 4-6 servings

Time: 1 hr

Ingredients

For the cake:

3/4 cup + 2 tbsp all purpose flour

3/4 cup coconut sugar

1/4 cup + 2 tbsp cocoa powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp vanilla powder (option to replace with vanilla extract)

1/2 tsp salt

1 room temperature egg

1/2 cup almond milk

1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar

1/4 cup neutral oil

1/2 cup hot coffee

For the icing:

3/4 cup roasted hazelnuts

3/4 cup soaked cashews

4 dates

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1 tsp vanilla powder (option to replace with vanilla extract)

1 tbsp maple syrup

1/4 tsp salt

1/4-1/2 water depending on how thick you want the icing to be. Less water is more fudgy, more water is fluffier.

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This cake can be made by hand or with a mixer, however we use a mixer because we have one.

Pre-heat the oven to 350 F and make hot coffee. Spread oil into your cake pans and add 1 tbsp of cocoa powder and shake until bottom and sides are coated. Mix the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, vanilla powder, salt). In a separate bowl or using a liquid 2 cup measuring device combine the almond milk, apple cider vinegar, neutral oil, and the egg. Break the yolk up, but no need to whisk the egg. Add this to the dry ingredients and mix until just combined, careful not to over mix. While you are stirring add the hot coffee and watch it transform into liquid smooth velvety cake batter.

Divide the batter between the two cake pans as equally as possible. Bake in pre-heated oven for about 30 minutes or until you can touch the center of the cake and it bounces back, however it should not be firm and should still have a slight wobble to it. Remove from the oven and let the cakes cool for about 5 minutes.

Wearing hot mitts, pick up the cake and tilt to about 45 degrees. Using the palm of your hand (in the hot mitt) pat the side of the cake pan and then turn the cake pan. Repeat this until you’ve tapped all the way around the pan. Next turn the pan upside-down, turning the cake onto a wire rack, clean counter top, or plate. Then lift the pan off of the cake. Flip your cake over so that the cake is right side up and let it cool completely before frosting.

Put roasted hazelnuts in your food processor and blend, stopping to scrape down the sides regularly until you have hazelnut butter. Drain your cashews and add them, with the rest of the icing ingredients, to the food processor. Blend, scraping down regularly until you have a smooth creamy icing. For the water, start with 1/4 cup and then add the water 1 tbsp at a time until you have the consistency that you like. The less water you use the more it will be like Nutella, the more water you add the more fluffy the icing will be.

Once your cakes have cooled, place the first cake onto a plate. Using a serrated knife, cut the rounded top of the cake off, just enough to create a flat surface. Generously spread icing onto the top of the first layer. Put the second layer on top, cutting off the top for a cleaner look or leaving it on for a rounded top. Spread icing over the top and sides. To get a smooth finish on your icing, use an icing spatula or knife to spread the icing onto the cake. In between strokes on the cake, wipe the icing off the spatula or knife and rinse in hot water. The hot knife will smooth the icing more effectively and stop the knife from creating a peak when you lift it off the icing.

Cut into slices and enjoy!

Sweet N Salty Pitaya Bowl

This week our hearts are heavy and our bodies are exhausted as we continue the process of unlearning. We didn’t mention the 4th of July (Independence Day here in the U.S.) last week because we didn’t remember that it was coming up. Camille has many fond memories of celebrating this day with food, fireworks, and family. Never once did she stop think what this holiday is actually celebrating. She was taught that we were celebrating a great feat of independence, but today we are wondering independence for whom? While the core values claimed by the Declaration of Independence ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’ seem worthy of pursuit, the fact is that it was only White cis-gendered heterosexual Christian colonists who were meant to receive these benefits. On July 4th, 1776 when the colonies adopted the Declaration of Independence chattel slavery was both legal and integral to the economy of the colonies. As the settlers claimed independence from the British Empire, we did so on stolen lands while committing genocide of indigenous people. This year we are seeing amazing protests sweep the world asking that our institutions stop killing Black people because of the color of their skin. While in 2020 chattel slavery isn’t supposed to exist anymore the prison industrial complex partners with police brutality to a similar affect. Feeling lost at how to reply to well-intentioned folks wishing her “happy 4th of July”, Camille used Rachel Cargle’s wise words “happy for who?”.

We are sitting with the questions of how to hold all of this knowledge. How do we hold the fond memories, the love of the values that should be core to our existence as a country, and also the death and brutality that this nation is built on. And, as we face this knowledge, how do we move forward? What do we do now that we know this? If you’re also having these thoughts reach out to us through email or text. If you’re also wondering how to hold the complexity of the life we are living, we are too. Let’s do this together.

This week we are celebrating with gratitude the full moon, the long July nights, and having fresh berries in season! In honor of these berries we’ve decided to share Camille’s favorite pitaya bowl recipe. We recognize that this bowl will be pretty expensive if you don’t already have a number of these ingredients on hand, and we don’t recommend trying to make it without a Vitamix with a tamping attachment. Feel free to play around with your own base and toppings and let us know what you love best!

We cook at home for a number of reasons including the pandemic, food allergies, money, and our love of cooking. Also, sometimes it makes more sense to eat out. For example, some recipes require so many ingredients that buying all of them to make one dish is very expensive and creates a lot of waste. For us, pitaya bowls often fall in the ‘makes more sense to eat out’ category. However, if you do want to make pitaya bowls from scratch at home, have some money to spend on ingredients, and have a Vitamix blender with tamping attachment then we highly recommend this pitatya recipe. It is sweet, fruity, salty, hearty, and delicious!

Time: 15 minutes

Serves: 1

Ingredients

for the pitaya base:

6 oz almond milk

6 oz frozen banana (if you have 24 hours you can chop your own banana and freeze the night before)

6 oz frozen mango

1 pack of frozen pitaya

1 tbsp chia seeds (optional)

1 tsp maca root powder (optional)

for the topping:

1/2 cup granola (gluten-free option)

2 tsp coconut oil, melted (optional)

1/4 tsp spirulina powder (optional)

1/2 banana, sliced

2 strawberries, sliced

12 blueberries (roughly)

1 tbsp chopped salted almonds, lightly toasted

2 tbsp peanut butter (we love Once Again for the flavor)

1 tbsp coconut flakes

2 tbsp coconut whip cream

1 tsp bee pollen (optional)

honey drizzle (as much/little as you like, if you don’t have coconut whip you might want extra honey)

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If you want to experience the spirluna coconut ‘shell’ then start by melting the coconut oil and stir in the spirulina powder. If you aren’t using this you can start by slicing your almonds, and toasting them lightly in a dry pan.

Put all the pitaya base ingredients in Vitamix blender and blend on high using tamper to make sure everything gets fully incorporated. Be careful not to over-blend. Aim for a sorbet-like texture.

To assemble, layer the granola then the pitaya base. Next drizzle the warm coconut oil/spirulina mixture over the pitaya base (optional). As it cools it will form a coconut oil shell. On top of this, put sliced banana, sliced strawberry and blueberries around the bowl. Add the peanut butter in a clump and the coconut whip cream in a clump. Sprinkle the toasted almonds on top of the peanut butter and then sprinkle the whole bowl with coconut flakes. Top the whip cream with the bee pollen and then drizzle the entire bowl with local honey. Enjoy!