Healthy Vegan Friday: Spiced Chocolate Chia Pudding and V-day Dinner

Yay, Friday.  I'm a little later than usual with my Healthy Vegan Friday post, but I had some important homework assignments to finish up this morning because yesterday was the day of LOVE and I wasn't doing any school work! 

This week was a busy one.  This is usually a slower time of year for surgeries, but 2013 is not following that trend.  So, I've been working a lot.  And then there's school.  And the best part of the week, Valentine's day!  With all of the busy-ness I didn't get around to making a new Healthy Vegan Friday recipe.  So, I'm re-posting one of my favorite healthy dessert recipes from Vegan MoFo 2011.  This is a guest post I did for xgfx.

Spiced Chocolate Chia Pudding

• 1/2 cup chia seeds
• 1/2 cup shredded coconut
• 2 cups coconut milk beverage (or nut milk of your choice)
• 1/3 cup raw cashews
• 1/2 cup agave or maple syrup
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4 cup raw cacao powder or cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• pinch sea salt

Stir together the chia seeds and shredded coconut in a large bowl.

In a high powered blender mix together the rest of the ingredients until completely smooth. Stir the wet mix into the seed mixture.

Let sit for 15 minutes and stir again. At this point the pudding can be divided into individual serving cups or left in the bowl to refrigerate. I like to put mine in 8 ounce juice glasses. Refrigerate at least 2-3 hours before serving. Makes about 4 servings.

Chia pudding is one of my favorite desserts.  And I'm thinking that I need to make it more often.  This recipe is really flexible and forgiving.  You can switch up the spices and sweeteners.  If you want to use stevia just add 1/2 cup more nut milk and enough stevia powder to please your taste buds.  You can blend fruit into the liquid.  And the possibilities for stir-ins are endless. Cacao nibs, anyone?  Yum.

Now let's spend a minute on Valentine's day.  I made a special meal for my special guy.  His favorite is shepherd's pie.  The version I made last night included soy curls, mushrooms, and truffle gravy topped with green onion mashed potatoes.  I won't lie, it was awesome.

And I made some heart shaped lemon spice donuts with raspberry lemon glaze.  All vegan and gluten free, of course.  The pink color of the glaze is from the raspberries.  Nothing artificial.  My heart shaped donut pan is one of my favorite kitchen toys.

I thought this veggie Valentine was pretty cute.

So, what are your plans for the weekend?  I'm thinking about experimenting with some new salad dressing recipes because I always use tahini or almond butter in mine.  I'm not tired of them at all, but now that I'm eating at least two salads a day I want to add a little variety.  And I might make some soup with that coconut milk I bought last weekend and haven't used yet.

See you Monday!