Guilt-Free *Monday* - Caramel

This is how guilty I felt for leaving you all hanging these past few Fridays.  I'm posting a recipe on a Monday.  This is also how excited I am about my grain-free lasagna, that I'm getting the caramel recipe out of the way so this Friday is open for that post!

This caramel is soooooo good.  Not only is it a great dip, but I have intentions of using it in the future - mixed with coconut milk ice cream (once I experiment with that), worked into cookies, etc.  It was a hit at my healthy eating class at ClassOnMain on June 14th - everyone seemed to love it!  I know I did!

I took the recipe from Edible Harmony, and the only change we made was switching out the coconut milk for almond milk.  We made both versions, but we made our own coconut milk the first time, which turned out awesome but was quite the process... Also it still gave the caramel a bit of a coconutty flavor, which we figured not everyone would like.  So I do recommend almond milk for this.  I must say, though, it's starting to feel strange posting other people's recipes on my blog, when I've been coming up with so many of my own lately.  But I'll be making up for that this Friday!

Here's the scoop:

1/2 cup dates, packed firmly
1/2 cup of full fat coconut milk, canned or homemade, or almond milk
2 tbsp of maple syrup
1 tbsp of coconut oil (unrefined is better for you but tastes like coconut, so I usually use refined just to avoid that extra flavor)
1/3 to 1/2 tsp of sea salt

Soak the dates in the milk for about an hour, or not if your blender is strong enough.
Put the dates, salt, coconut oil, maple syrup and half of the milk in a blender, and turn it on medium speed.  Add more milk as you go until you get the consistency you like.  Less = thicker, more = thinner.
Dunk some apple slices in it and enjoy!