Happy Wednesday, everybody! Jenn at Peas and Crayons is hosting our weekly blog party and there’s LOTS of delicious goodies to be found! I’m pretty excited today because not only do I have another chocolate recipe to share this week, it is a raw chocolate chip cookie recipe, perfect for this month’s WIAW theme of “sensible snacking” and my Flavor of the Week, chocolate!
Last winter I became interested in learning about raw food dieting. Not sushi kind of raw, but uncooked veggies and soaked grains kind of raw. I won’t go into a lot of detail but here’s just three easy-to-remember health benefits to a raw (or mostly raw) diet:
1) more nutrition – uncooked foods (foods heated to less than 118 degrees farenheit) retain more of their vitamins and minerals. When cooked, the nutritional value is greatly reduced and you will have to eat more food to get the nutrition your body needs (so eating raw foods can help you maintain a healthy weight, too!)
2) easier digestion – raw foods contain lots of fiber and water to help your body with elimination. You won’t have that bloated, over-stuffed feeling after finishing a meal and no afternoon slump.
3) increased energy – since raw foods are easier to digest, your body won’t have to “shut down” while its trying to digest your food, like it might do with heavier foods like a delicious bacon cheeseburger and french fries. (Ask my husband, he’ll tell you I pretty much always crash out after eating stuff like this for lunch.)
Even if you don’t go 100% raw, you can still benefit with a chocolate green smoothie for breakfast, a colorful veggie salad for lunch, and a normal-cooked dinner with some kimchee or sauerkraut on the side (also considered raw!)
Speaking of which, here’s some of the foods I had for BL&D over the pas few days…
On Sunday morning I pulled out my juicer and made some fresh carrot-apple-ginger juice and grape juice and garnished with mint and lemon thyme. Looks good, doesn’t it? Served up in a champagne glass, it looks like an expensive cocktail!
Breakfast that followed was a not-so-raw peanut butter toast with raspberry preserves and coffee (recycled pic):
Lunch on Tuesday was a mish-mash salad of veggies and fruits, plus some pulverized flax seed crackers that tasted better crushed than in cracker-form. I sat down with my bowl, got my camera ready and look who decided to stick his furry orange head into my shot:
Dinner was kind of up in the air, I didn’t know what to cook, didn’t want sandwiches and my husband probably wouldn’t have wanted salad. After running a few simple options through my head I decided to make pannekoeken (Dutch style pancakes) with cheddar cheese and mushrooms:
I needed some greens with this meal, so ate a bunch of sugar snap peas:
Sugar snap peas aren’t the only raw & delicious food I had today. Remember those cookies I talked about in the beginning? Those were made from a raw cookie recipe in Judita Wignall’s, Going Raw:

Going Raw: Everything You Need to Start Your Own Raw Food Diet & Lifestyle Revolution at Home, by Judita Wignall
Judita gives a lot of easy-to-follow information on raw dieting and makes it very user-friendly. There’s tons of mouth-watering photos that will inspire you to plan out your next grocery trip with veggies in mind, and maybe even try your hand at sprouting some grains! She has a ‘live and let live’ attitude that makes her book informative, not preachy, which is really great when it comes to talking about something like healthy diets. Plus, I love her gorgeous red hair!
She has several recipes that I like, including the Ice Box Chocolate Chip Cookies I’ll be sharing today. I didn’t change the recipe much except the substitutions I wrote in parentheses, and the instructions are not copied verbatim but the steps are the same.
Raw Chocolate Chip Cookies
From the book Going Raw by Judita Wignall
1 1/2 cups cashews
2/3 cup Medjool dates (about 6-7 large ones, with pits)
3 tablespons almond butter (I used 2 T peanut butter and 1 T coconut oil)
1/8 teaspoon sea salt (optional)
1/4 cup raw chocolate chunks* (I substituted Nestle semi-sweet chocolate chips–not raw and contains dairy–and added dried cherries)
*Judita has a raw chocolate recipe in her cook book that is gluten-free and dairy-free, but you can use any chocolate you prefer
Directions:
1. In a food processor grind the cashews into a flour.
2. Add the dates, almond butter (or peanut butter and coconut oil) and sea salt and process until it sticks together. Use a spatula to scrape down the sides as needed.
3. Transfer to a bowl and mix in the chocolate chunks/chips (and optional dried cherries) with a spatula.
4. On a nonstick surface, roll out dough to 3/8″ thickness. Cut out with a small cookie cutter and freeze (not to worry, they won’t get rock solid.) Cookies will keep for 1 month in the freezer.
I almost forgot…look what else you can do with these raw chocolate chip cookies:
Check out these Mini Cake and Ice Cream Bites from last Thursday’s Recipe ReDux. They’re just as cute!
This recipe is also my first contribution to Cookbook Sundays, sponsored by Couscous & Consciousness.
Have you tried any healthy versions of classic recipes lately? What’s your favorite cookie? :)
June 27, 2012 at 08:15
Awesome post! Lots of great raw goodies there :)
June 27, 2012 at 08:17
Thanks, and I just added another photo of the carrot juice by itself. The colors make it easy to eat healthy!
June 27, 2012 at 09:03
Love your post! I’ve been really interested in learning more about eating raw, I even was checking that going raw book out on amazon few days ago! I definitely can tell a diffence with how I feel digestive wise when I eat foods as close to their normal state as possible!
June 30, 2012 at 09:12
Cool, I hope you order it! I love just flipping through it and looking at the photos (haven’t checked out the DVD yet, still glued to the inside cover!) I also feel better if I stick with veggies, and mostly raw veggies, but I still cook meats and last night I had several big mouthfuls of my sister’s orange dreamsicle cake (gotta make a gf/df version, it’s sooo good!) Let me know what you think of the book, or if you get a different one I’d love to hear about it. Thanks for stopping by! :D
June 27, 2012 at 10:38
carrot-apple-ginger juice looks (and sounds) delicious! Have you seen “Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead”? After seeing that I have been really wanting a juicer but I have yet to buy one.
June 27, 2012 at 12:23
Hi, Lauren. The carrots are sweet so the apples lighten it up a bit, and the ginger gives it a nice heat (I put about a 2″ piece w/1 big carrot, 1/2 apple, very spicy!) I found my Juiceman juicer on craigslist for $50 a few years ago and it’s been working just fine (the guy I bought it from was lean and muscular, so you know it works!) I just googled that movie, it sounds really interesting, I’d love to see it. Thanks for the recommendation!
June 27, 2012 at 14:05
Awesome and wholesome!
June 27, 2012 at 14:39
They definitely are! :)
June 27, 2012 at 16:47
These look delicious! I used to juice colorful drinks and put them in margarita glasses. One day my mom came home shocked to think her 14 year old daughter was drinking a cocktail. I said, relax, it’s orange and strawberry!
June 27, 2012 at 16:54
Haha! It’s nice to break out the fancy dishes once in a while, just because. ;) Thanks for stopping by,
June 27, 2012 at 18:05
I’ve always wanted to try a date based cookie, but haven’t gotten around to it yet. Those look pretty good. And that carrot juice!! Holy color! Awesome! :)
June 27, 2012 at 18:39
The dates add a lot of bulk and some sweetness, not like raisins, they’re more “friendly.” I have a cocoa fudgy bites recipe that uses mostly dates and nuts, those are good too. Dates on salad, dates with goat cheese, dates on the go…I love dates!
June 27, 2012 at 22:33
I haven’t eaten much when it comes to raw food, but those cookies look amazing!
June 28, 2012 at 07:16
They’re very yummy, and since they have to be stored in the freezer anyway (they fall apart otherwise,) make a few mini ice cream sandwiches for a quick little summertime snack! :)
July 1, 2012 at 06:33
I totally have to give these a try. I love this idea, and I love the idea of using these raw cookies for ice cream sandwiches as well.
Thanks for sharing these at Cookbook Sundays.
Sue
July 2, 2012 at 08:24
I like it as ice cream sandwiches, they don’t get rock hard so they’re easy to eat. Thanks for hosting Cookbook Sundays, Sue. :)
July 8, 2012 at 14:56
Fascinating! And they look so chewy–I want one right now!
July 8, 2012 at 16:45
Hi, Leilani! They’re more of a firm-crumbly texture because of the ground cashews, though I think you could probably make them chewy with more dates, which would also sweeten them up a lot. This fudgy cocoa bites recipe is chewy, reminds me of moist brownies but is made with mostly dates and some nuts, opposite of this raw cookie that’s mostly nuts and some dates: https://thefoodery.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/what-i-ate-wednesday-1-featuring-fudgy-cocoa-bites/
July 9, 2012 at 15:21
HI!
do you think it would work with walnuts rather than cashews?
thank!
July 9, 2012 at 15:55
I have never tried it with walnuts, but it should work just fine, the dates will help hold it together. If you give it a try, let me know!
July 9, 2012 at 16:26
[…] Raw Chocolate Chip Cookies from The Foodery […]
July 9, 2012 at 19:21
why not go vegan? animals are killed for dairy and eggs too, and it’s not any less unhealthy than meat. it’s not necessary to buy animal products, and it always causes animals to be used as property, so why keep doing it?
July 9, 2012 at 20:11
Hi, Yuuichi, thanks for your comment. I enjoy cooking different kinds of foods and, for myself, think of ‘vegan’ and ‘vegetarian’ as more of a cuisine rather than lifestyle choice. I realize many people choose to adopt a vegan diet for reasons such as yours, and I think that’s wonderful. I choose to explore various types of cooking and food preparation that is not limited to a vegan diet.
July 20, 2012 at 13:56
Awesome and delicious! Thanks for sharing… this looks like a “must try” for me when I get some downtime from baking my cakes!
– Shannon @ Crumb Cake Creations
July 20, 2012 at 15:29
Thanks, Shannon, it’s pretty different from a regular cookie, but it still is delicious! :)