How to use cocoa every day:
Cocoa goes well with naturally sweet vegetables like carrots, sweet potato and beets.
Cocoa blends well with the following spices: orange peels, pink peppercorn, vanilla, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, nutmeg, camu camu, lucuma, mustard and of course sweet chili.
Check your dosha chart to select the proper spice for you.
Here is one of my favorite sexy salad and vegetable dressings using cocoa:
5 tbsp of walnut oil
1 tbsp tamari
1 tbsp maple syrup
1 tsp nutritional yeast
½ tsp cocoa power
½ tsp ginger
½ tsp sweet chili
½ tsp camu camu
½ tbsp vanilla
Mix all ingredients well and use over green salads, rice, beets, carrots or roasted sweet potatoes.
Scientific studies are now revealing that cocoa beans can impact the health of your heart. Perhaps this is why people have intuitively associated chocolate with love and pleasure.
I enjoy not only combining cocoa in traditional dessert recipes, but also in daily cooking. When I am blending spices, I consider the depth of flavor, bitterness and astringent effect that cocoa beans can give to the recipe. Cocoa is one of the ingredients that serve as a connector to the other spices. It really is like the heart beat of the blend. Cocoa without the sugar has a bitter astringent taste but it also has a nutty fat flavor, which gives weight and a certain consistency to the blend.
