Who remembers the adorable girl from the movie Grown Ups who said “I wanna get chocolate wasted!” ?!!
I am that child.
… & I wanna get chocolate wasted anytime and any day of the week, not just Friday and Saturday night. Yes, I’m still talking about chocolate !!
If you follow my Instagram account, you know I LOVE a sweet breakfast. I enjoy my sweet potato pancakes, coffee overnight oats, banana bread in a mug, and anything else that I can put chocolate in. Dark chocolate with at least 70% cacao of course! )
Shh, don’t tell anyone. but the chocolate chips i use in this recipe are only 67% !!!!
Cacao beans are seeds of the cacao tree from Mexico and South America. The cacao beans are roasted and ground to produce cocoa. If the beans are dried at a low temperature, they are raw cacao beans that can produce the cacao powder.
The flipping of the “o” and “a” isn’t the only difference between the two. Heating the cacao beans alters the chemical nature of the beans, reduces the nutrient density, and lowers the antioxidant capacity compared to the beans dried at a lower temperature.
Cacao is the natural source that contains the highest amount of magnesium, chromium, iron, zinc, copper, and manganese. The best benefit, in my opinion, is the performance boosting flavonoid compound, epicatechin.
According to a study performed by Astrid Nehlig, epicatechin improves various aspects of cognition in animals and humans. In addition, flavonoids lower the risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease and decrease the risk of stroke in humans.
So… If chocolate comes from cocoa, a tree. That makes it a plant. So chocolate is salad…?!
Well, not necessarily. BUT it tastes dank with quinoa.
Recipe:
½ cup quinoa
1, 1/4 cup coconut milk unsweetened ( more for adding later )
1 T cacao
1 T maple syrup
vanilla extract
cinnamon
2 T dark choco chips
unsweetened coconut shavings
Directions
Bring coconut milk to a simmer in a small saucepan. Add quinoa. Heat until the quinoa absorbs the liquid. Remove from heat and stir in cacao, maple syrup, vanilla extract, cinnamon, and a pinch of salt. Add desired amount of coconut milk and top with choco chips and coconut shaving.
TIP : If the quinoa still does not become translucent, add water or more coconut milk, turn the heat on low, and cover the saucepan. This should help the quinoa become translucent.
Also, I would highly recommend adding more coconut milk after combining all ingredients. I prefer this bowl to have a similar consistency as oatmeal.
If you want to add some more healthy fats, skip the coconut shavings and drizzle on peanut butter !!
This PB cacao bowl also shows how soup-ey I prefer my breakfast bowl to be.
Would you get cacao wasted for breakfast?!
xx hails
Sources: http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/antioxidant-benefits-raw-cacao-3990.html, http://blogs.plos.org/speakeasyscience/2012/02/14/the-curious-toxic-chemistry-of-chocolate/ and https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3575938/