• about equal amounts of cacao butter to cacao powder. Use small amounts of coconut butter instead of the cacao butter if you want a softer chocolate.
• agave nectar to taste. I used 10 tbsp for 3 cups of cacao butter and 3 cups of cacao powder.
• raw coconut butter
• flavourings (vanilla pod, orange and ginger, chilli, cinnamon and cardamom)

method

• Gently melt the cacao butter/coconut butter using a glass bowl over warm water (careful about the heat if you want the chocolate to remain raw)
• stir in the cacao powder, agave nectar and any flavourings
• after the mixture is smooth, pour into a suitable mould (ice cube trays or tupperware is fine) and transfer to the freezer for 15 minutes
• turn out onto a plate and let the chocolate come back up to room temperature for maximum flavour and texture appreciation!

the base

• almonds and cashews
• dried dates
• a bit of tahini

blend it in a food processor until the mix starts sticking together. Add more dates if it needs more stickyness. Add more nuts if it needs more bulk.  Squish it into a greased tin and put in the freezer for 30 minutes.

the chocolate bit

• 6 ripe avocados
• a banana
• sweetener like date syrup or golden syrup
• cocoa powder

Blend the avocados and then add the banana. Start adding cocoa powder and sweetener to taste. As usual, the most important rule of improvised cooking is to keep tasting! Spread over the base and put in the fridge. A few hours before you want it is good.

tasting hint

I drink and gargle a bit of water and then smell coffee in between tastings. This seems to help keep my palette fresh.

These came about while experimenting with ground cocoa powder. You’ll need most of these ingredients:

• cocoa powder
• a runny sweetener (golden syrup, date syrup, honey etc.)
• a thickener like tahini or ground nuts (I used tahini and cashews)
• something to dust the outside with like dessicated coconut

Mix up the nuts, tahini and sweetener in a bowl. It’s easier to get the sweetness right now than later because stirring runny sweeteners into thick paste is hard. So if you want really chocolatey truffles you’ll need this mix to be quite sweet because cocoa is bitter.

Pour in a good amount of cocoa powder and blend it in. Taste and check for texture. Keep adding cocoa until the taste and the texture is just right.

Pull off little pieces of the mixture and roll into balls. Then drop into a bowl of your dusting material and roll around. Stack them up on a plate and cool them for a bit in the fridge before eating!

He was gasping for breath and leaking blood. 2 cars went over but moved to avoid him. Sam had joined me by then and we both went over. I felt I needed to kill him, so I put my heel over his head and started pressing down. He writhed as he felt my shoe, and in that split second I realised I was going far too slowly. I pushed down fast and killed him. Then I swept him into the gutter with my shoe. Sam picked him up and dropped him over the fence into the communal park.

Writing this now is bringing back that shaking feeling. Immediately afterwards I felt really shaky and needed to spend some time meditating. I felt instinctively the need to end his suffering, but also felt that it was a terrible thing to do.

That evening we went back and made a little ceremony and buried him with some bits of fruits and nuts. We played him a song and I thought of Hafiz poems. I felt bad about kicking him out of the road. I’m glad Sam was there to give him some more respect.

My feelings about this are tied up with my belief that life is precious, that I respect life and death, and that because I respect life I don’t want to end it.

Killing the squirrel was not easy. My feelings validate my ideas about veganism in a vivid way. I don’t want to kill animals unnecessarily.

1. heat the milk to around 50 degrees C (2minutes in a 800W microwave)
2. empty a capsule of starter into a small cup and use some of the milk to mix it into a paste. Stir this into the rest of the milk.
3. keep warm for 8 hours (around 30 degrees C)
4. transfer to fridge to set

notes

• one capsule of probiotics is enough for about 500ml milk.
• I bought a reptile heat mat, and glued it into a cylinder the right size for my jars. This keeps the milk at a nice stable 30 degrees C. Otherwise use an airing cupboard or similarly warm place. A thermos does well too.
• 500ml of yoghurt works out at around 50p.