Self love can be hard to practice when you’ve got a whole lot of other people to love and take care of. Often our priorities contort and we put ourselves dead last. I think the paleo and primal lifestyles need to entail reflective processes that awaken our softer sides. Our hunter gatherer ancestors didn’t work as hard as many people think, the average “work week” was around 15-20 hours(1). This left plenty of free time to explore, have fun, make art, music, dance and just ponder the profundity of existence and what it means to be alive. I strongly wish our culture could return to its ancestral roots in this way, these acts of pleasure not only strengthen the self but also the community as a whole. We’ve been lead to believe that if we aren’t working and we aren’t consuming, then we are useless and bound to the confines of laziness. In whatever little ways we can, it’s important to reconnect to our roots, to take the time to create or to just bask in stillness, a rare creature nowadays. Personally I feel really happy and connected when I can get my dance on, not in da club or whatever but just in my living room or an empty field. What activities do you feel liberate you from the confines of the work and consume cultural dogma we live in?
Most don’t grow up in a way that teaches us how to listen to our bodies and know when we’ve pushed to hard and gone too far. So sit down, relax, have a piece of ridiculously healthy cheesecake, those hunter gatherers would’ve died for this luscious energy filled goodness. This recipe is fairly involved but the results are stunning and well worth it. I would normally make something like this for a celebration but this time I really just wanted a luxurious rich snack without any reason or logic- why not?
- 1½ C raw cashews, soaked for 6-8 hours
- 1 C raw almonds, soaked 6-8 hrs
- 1 C raw hazelnuts, soaked 6-8 hrs
- 1 C date paste or around 8 whole pitted dates, soaked in warm water for ½ hour
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- 2 Tbs cacao powder
- ½ C fresh squeezed orange juice
- 1 tsp orange zest
- ½ tsp sea salt
- ½ C cacao paste (unprocessed cacao not yet separated into powder and butter)
- ½ C coconut oil
- ½ C maple syrup
- ½ tsp flaky sea salt or himalayan rock salt
- 1 mandarin orange, peeled and sectioned (optional)
- For the crust, prepare a springform pan 7 or 9 inches and place a piece of parchment on the base with the edges underneath (this is just to help remove the cheesecake from the base)
- In a food processor or high powered blender add almonds and hazelnuts, strained and rinsed, add dates and about 1 Tbs of their soaking water, blend until you reach a smooth and uniform consistency.
- Add vanilla extract, salt and cacao powder and blend together, you may need to add a few Tbs of water or almond milk to get things moving and fully incorporated.
- Press this mixture into the base of your pan and set aside in the fridge or freezer.
- For the filling, heat a pot of water and place a heat proof glass or metal bowl over top. Add cacao paste, coconut oil and maple syrup to the bowl and allow it to slowly melt, stirring every now and then.
- In a food processor or blender add soaked, rinsed cashews, orange zest and orange juice and blend until smooth. When everything in the bowl is melted add ¾ of the cacao mixture to the cashews, blend until super smooth and creamy.
- Spread filling evenly on top of the crust and swirl remaining chocolate sauce on top, optionally you can also coat the mandarin pieces in chocolate and sprinkle some rock salt on top for serving.
- Allow the cheesecake a few hours in the fridge to set, you could also put it in the freezer if you're in a hurry, just allow it to thaw out a bit before serving.
