Vegan Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Who doesnt love cookies right out of the oven, especially on a snowy Saturday night while hanging out with your sister! We both had nothing to do last night so naturally we decided to hang out together. I just got US Netflix so I asked her to come over so we could watch some of our favourite tv shows and some stand up comedy.

While on the phone she stated that she was craving chocolate and I suggested we make some cookies. I had a can of chick peas in my cupboard and I have heard of these chick pea cookies and was curious to try them. Cheslea was game for trying out something new so she looked up a recipe and came over.

What I loved about the recipe that she chose,was that it was so simple to make and didn't call for that many ingreidents. Basically chick peas, peanut butter, chocolate chips and a few other basics. They turned out warm, gooey and super delicious and we may or may not have eaten about 10 each. Yes they were that good.Plus they are vegan, gluten free and if you substitute the peanut butter for almond butter it's nut free too! The only thing that could have made them better was a glass of Chocolate Almond Milk.

Vegan Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Chick Pea Cookies
1 large can of chick peas
3/4 cup peanut butter
1 tsp of vanilla powder
4 dates soaked in water until soft or 1/2 cup maple syrup
1 tsp of baking soda
1/2 cup chocolate chips (more if you love chocolate

Pre heat oven to 350 degrees, and line a baking sheet with parchement paper.

In a Vitamix or food processor combine all of the ingredients together, except for the chocolate chips. With the dates: de seed them and add a spash of water to the mix.

Blend the mix until smooth. Make 1 tbsp size balls and place them some what close together because they dont spread out. Bake for 12 mins and enjoy!!

Thanks for reading!
xoxo

 

-N

Low Fat Vegan Pad Thai, with Raw Vegan Option

I am a huge fan of Thai food. I love the spices, the creamy sauces, and the heat that comes with most meals. Also I love the fact that they tend to stay away from using meat in most dishes. They love using lentils, beans and vegetables to make up most of their dishes, something that I am very familiar with!

I have wanted to make a Pad Thai for a very long time, but never felt the drive to go for it. Knowing that the Pad Thai I used to eat was amazing, I was a little apprehensive on making a vegan version. But that all changed when I got a major craving for it and just had to make it for supper!

I have seen multiple recipes online for vegan and raw vegan versions and none really stuck with me. They all looked pretty but the ingredients didn’t really entice me to make them. So surprise, surprise I came up with my own! Wanting a challenge I really wanted to make this as low fat as possible. Knowing that anything with coconut milk, peanut butter and noodles tastes great. So I really thought about what was going into this dish and how I could substitute out the high fat things for low fat things!

The first to be subbed out were the noodles. I knew from the beginning that I was going to make mine with zucchini and skip the rice noodles. Not that they are bad for you, just that the zucchini noodles are a healthier choice! Next was the sauce. Traditionally Pad Thai sauce is made from oyster and fish sauce, two things that we vegans cannot eat! So what would give that taste?..... *light bulb* Nori papers! They have that fishy taste because they are made from seaweed and they would blend really nicely into a sauce without changing the texture. Now to give the sauce some substance! I wanted to go for a creamy version of Pad Thai and skip out on the Worcestershire Sauce, Soy Sauce and anything else high in salt and unknown ingredients. Well why not use another zucchini? That would make it creamy without having to add any non-dairy milk.

Results? Fantastic! It had a great nutty flavour, with a hint of spice right at the end from the red pepper flakes. But what is really awesome about this dish is that it can be raw too! So you now have the option of having a raw dish or a cooked one. Two for one here folks!

Low Fat Vegan Pad Thai

-       1 medium zucchini, spagettified with a mandolin or spiralizer

-       2 carrots, shredded

-       2 cups bean sprouts

-       1 cups broccoli, chopped

-       2 green onions, chopped

-       crushed unsalted peanuts

-       lime juice, garnish

Pad Thai Sauce

-       2 limes, juiced

-       1 nori paper

-       1 tbsp fresh ginger, grated

-       2 tbsp peanut butter

-       1 clove garlic

-       1 small zucchini

-       2 tsp Red pepper flakes

Place all ingredients into a blender and puree until smooth.

In a large skillet steam the carrots, broccoli and onions with a little water until almost fork tender (about 7-10 mins) toss in the zucchini, sprouts and sauce and cook for another 10 minutes. Add crushed peanuts and lime. Enjoy!

Raw version!

Don’t cook any of it! Use your favourite raw nut butter and raw nori paper in the sauce. Toss all ingredients together and enjoy!!

Thanks for reading!

xoxo -N

Quick and Easy Curry Stew

I LOVE CURRY! Like L.O.V.E LOVE  I have made a couple different curry dishes and this is by far the easiest and best I have ever made. I know I have said this about every curry dish I have made, but honestly it just keeps getting better and easier. I was surprised at how quick this meal came together and how great it turned out. 
Like always, when trying a new dish I am always a little wary on if I will like it, but man this is good. Now, I can see a couple of you out there thinking that this might be too hard, you are wrong, it’s only 4 easy steps to awesomeness for this dish. If you are unsure of whether or not you like curry then maybe start off with no curry spices and add little by little instead. For me I used 2 tbsp of curry spice to really bring out that extra punch.

So if you are in the mood for something really fun tonight, why not try out my amaze-balls curry stew, I dare you!

Serves 2-6 people ( I ate the whole pot so really 1-6 people)

Stew
2 garlic cloves

1 tbsp of coconut oil

2 good-sized sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped

1 large yellow onion, chopped

1 large red bell pepper, or 2 small ones, chopped

1 can chick peas, rinsed and drained
1 lime

Sauce

1 can diced tomatoes

2 inch fresh ginger, peeled

2 heaping tablespoons peanut butter

1 tsp ground cumin

½ tsp ground cinnamon

¼ tsp ground red pepper flakes

2 tablespoon curry powder

1 tbsp maple syrup

½ can coconut milk

Directions:

Step one – chop up all the veggies

Step two – sauté the veggies, hick peas and oil for about 10 mins in a large pot on medium high, until almost fork tender

Step three – put all of the sauce ingredients into a blender and puree until smooth

Step four – pour sauce over veggies and let simmer for 15 minutes, the longer you simmer the thicker it gets!

Garnish with lime and serve over rice or noodles. Enjoy!

Substitutions

*coconut milk for any that you have on hand

*peanut butter for any other nut or seed butter you have

*sweet potatoes for regular potatoes

Thanks for reading!

Xoxo -N

Thai Cabbage Summer Salad

A couple weekends ago I had the great pleasure of going over to a friend’s house for a ‘smoke’ night, and by smoke I mean smoked meat. Yumm…. Not so much. Haha, not really my thing, but exciting for everyone else there. Our friend just bought a new smoker and he was really anxious to try it out and Devon loves any excuse to eat something smoked.

So what was I going to make, seeing as I was not going to eat what they were having? A wonderful salad! Yup I was going to bring salad to a meat party. Don’t think I cant hear you guys out there quoting the Simpsons “you don’t make friends with salad”. Well I was and I did! Everyone who tried it said it tasted great and some (like myself) even went back for seconds!

I was really excited to make this one too, the ingredients are so colorful, and the Thai peanut sauce was making my mouth water. For me anything with a Thai peanut sauce is golden.
This is a perfect salad to make when you have left over quinoa in your fridge, a) because its one less step in making this salad b) the quinoa is already cold! c) who doesn’t love using leftover food, instead of throwing it out later on that week.  
It is such a fresh, crisp and tasty salad it is now in my repertoire of meals that I can either make at home or bring to family suppers.

If you or someone you know have nut allergies, just sub out the cashews and peanut butter for almonds and sunflower seed butter!

Ingredients  4 - 8 people

½ head purple cabbage

2 cups of cooked quinoa
2 carrots, grated

1 red pepper, diced

1 zucchini, diced

¼ red onion, diced
½ cup cilantro, chopped

½ cup cashews

Thai Peanut Salad Dressing

¼ cup organic peanut butter

1 tbsp fresh ginger, grated

1 tbsp soy sauce

2 dates

1 lime, juiced
Combine all of the dressing ingredients together in a high speed blender and puree until smooth. Pour dressing over salad right before serving and fold in until completely combined. 

No Bake, Choclate Quinoa Bites

This past Friday Devon and I got the privilege of babysitting our nephews and having them sleep over night. We have never had a sleepover with them before so we were really excited for them to come over.

 I wasn’t too sure what we were going to do, because Devon and I don’t have a lot of things for them to play with. But we improvised and they had a blast. The first thing we did was blow up the air mattress they were sleeping on that night and put it in the living room. We were going to watch a movie after supper and thought it would be fun to lay on the floor and eat popcorn. Well the movie was put on hold because Auntie Nikki blew up SO MANY balloons that they wanted to play with those instead. At first Brody and Carson just played with the balloons, but then Brody had the idea of lining them up on the air mattress and then taking a running jump and knocking them all off. It was quite the game, so simple yet so much fun!

They also played with our dogs, Lucy and Stella. Our girls haven’t been around kids much so I was a little wary on how they would respond to having them overnight. But they did awesome! It took Stella a little while to calm down and get used to them being around, but after an hour she was sitting on the floor playing with her chew toy. Only when the kids had food was she on them like white on rice. But Brody and Carson had no trouble telling them to ‘go lay down’ and ‘No Stella this is not yours!’ When they left the next morning each dog took a couch and slept for hours, recuperating from the constant (yet awesome) play time and attention the boys gave them.

Brody giving Stella a hug

Carson hanging out with Lucy

After supper we made some cookies! I had came across this recipe a while ago and thought it would be fun to make seeing as they are ‘No Bake’. I tried the recipe out and immediately knew I had to make some changes. The original recipe calls for ¼ cup of coconut oil, plus ½ cup of peanut butter and I knew that it was going to be way to much oil. But I made it first seeing how it would pan out and I was right. There was so much oil, that the pan they were on had little pools of coconut oil underneath them. This time while making them with the boys I omitted the coconut oil and they turned out perfect. Also I substituted the honey for date syrup and made them balls instead of cookies!

After letting the cookie dough cool off, the boys and I got to work on forming our very own cookies. I gave them free range to make what ever shape or size of cookies they wanted. Which was quite interesting, some turned out like patties, some were balls and some were ‘worms’. Those didn’t make it to picture stage, a) because they ate them b) they looked like cat poop. Yup I said it, cat poop. I know that sounds weird but its true. To the boys they were making worms but to Devon and I, it was something else. No worries though, because they were the kids cookies and they had fun making them!

In the morning I made pancakes for everyone, including myself. I came up with a recipe that didn’t turn out that bad, but they weren’t awesome and I am not posting a pancake recipe that isn’t awesome. The regular pancakes got rave reviews from Brody and Carson, they said I made the best pancakes EVER and that they wanted to eat them every day. I wont lie, that made me feel great, what is it about a kid giving you a compliment that just makes you feel like you are the queen of the world?

By the time breakfast was over, the kids had already got the dog beds from upstairs and were dragging them down to the bottom of the stairs. They wanted to jump off the stairs into the pile of beds, and why not? I used to jump off the stairs, so why cant they? I think they did this for 2 hours, everything from counting each stair as they jumped off, to throwing balloons while jumping and trying to race it down.

We had a lot of fun, only a couple stubbed toes and brotherly fights, but all in all we had a lot of fun spending time with our nephews. Hopefully this is not the last time we get to do this while they are young, I know Jen and Sean wouldn’t mind us taking the boys for the night.

Ingredients Makes - 18-20 cookies

1/2 cup date syrup (recipe below)

4 tablespoons cocoa powder or carob powder

1/2 cup peanut butter or almond butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/3 cup shredded coconut

1/2 - 1 cup cooked white quinoa

Over medium heat, combine date syrup and cocoa powder. Bring to a simmer, stirring constantly for 2-3 minutes and remove from heat. Stir in peanut butter, vanilla, coconut, and quinoa. You can either use a spoon or your hands to make the balls, but be warned that the batter is messy! Place them onto parchment paper and set in the refrigerator to set (about 15-20 mins)

Date Syrup

5-7 large majool dates

1/4 cup water

Blend in high speed blender until smooth.

Thanks for reading!
Xoxo -N

3 Ingredient, Vegan Oatmeal Banana Cookies

Lately I have been really thinking about what I eat and what goes into it. Well lets be real, I am constantly thinking about what I eat, every single day, almost every minute. If you were having a conversation with me I probably think about food at least twice during our time together. Just ask me next time we are talking, and I bet I could list off a couple things that have been floating around in my head.

I have been seriously considering making some sort of change and what came to mind was only eating things that are one ingredient. I am able to mix and match, cook and freeze, what ever I want, but I am going to try and eat things with one ingredient on them. It is actually going to be a little harder than it might seem. I cant have my broth to flavour stir fries or soups, no hoisen sauce for my spring rolls or no Daiya! Yes I said Daiya. That one is going to be the hardest to give up because since I have come home from Mexico I have been eating it like crazy! Hence the need for cutting back on it.

So I guess this is my first challenge to all of you who are reading this. Can you go even one day with only eating things that are one ingredient? It might sound difficult, but aren’t you up for a new challenge in your life? I'm not saying to do this forever, heck I am not going to, but just try one or two days and see what it's like. You will be surprised at how much OTHER stuff you actually eat throughout the day.

A great example would be: Toast with jam and peanut butter, and a coffee with creamer in it.

A simple breakfast that I am sure a ton of people eat for breakfast. But when you break down the list of ingredients in just those “two” items that you might choose to have for breakfast you would be surprised at how many things are in it.

This is what their websites have listed:

Smuckers Strawberry Jam - STRAWBERRIES, SUGAR, GLUCOSE, GLUCOSE-FRUCTOSE, PECTIN, CITRIC ACID

Kraft Peanut Butter - Select roasted peanuts, soybean oil, corn dextrin, sugar, hydrogenated vegetable oil, salt

Dempsters Whole Wheat Bread - Whole grain whole wheat flour including the germ, water, glucose-fructose/sugar, yeast*, vegetable oil (canola or soybean), salt, wheat gluten, vinegar, calcium propionate, sodium stearoyl-2-lactylate, monoglycerides, acetylated tartaric acid esters of mono and diglycerides, sorbic acid. May contain calcium iodate, calcium carbonate, calcium sulphate, cornstarch, ammonium chloride. *order may change. May contain soybean, milk ingredients and sesame seeds

Coffee Mate Original - WATER, CORN SYRUP SOLIDS, PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED SOYBEAN AND/OR COTTONSEED OIL, AND LESS THAN 2% OF SODIUM CASEINATE (A MILK DERIVATIVE)**, DIPOTASSIUM PHOSPHATE, MONO- AND DIGLYCERIDES, SODIUM ALUMINOSILICATE, ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR, CARRAGEENAN.

In that 'simple' breakfast there are 40 different ingredients, and that’s not including the 'may contain' in the bread. I honestly couldn’t believe how many ingredients were in the bread alone and the Coffee Mate, I only recognize the corn syrup, water as recognizable food ingredients. 

This post is not about putting down what people eat, it's about wanting you to make informed decisions and realizing what you actually put into your bodies everyday. Because I think when we actually take a hard look at what we are eating, we make better choices in the long run.

So again, I challenge you to the “One ingredient day” and see what you could change in your daily eating habits. Who knows you might actually like the changes you make. 

In honor of the one ingredient challenge, I present you some pretty fricken awesome cookies! I saw this recipe on Pinterest and it looked really simple with only 3 ingredients in it, I knew as soon as I saw it that I had to try these out. Not only are they vegan, but they are diabetic friendly, and can be gluten free. I was at first wary of the recipe because I wasn't sure what the texture was going to be like, so I bought regular rolled oats from the bulk area, to save some money. But now I know that they are delicious I plan on buying Only Oats, the gluten free oats that my family can eat. 

For me I was instantly won over by the texture. They are moist, soft and chewy, almost like a granola/banana bread cookie. They are really good right out of the oven, but also remain soft days later. 

Also, I understand that chocolate chips do not follow my one ingredient rule, but it is just a suggestion and if you want chocolate flavored cookies you could reduce your rolled oats by one tbsp and add in one tbsp of raw cocoa powder! 

I did three batches of cookies, chocolate chips, dates and chia seeds!

Ingredients - 10 cookies

2 ripe spotted bananas

1 cup rolled oats, Gluten free or regular

1/4 cup one of your favorite filling

     - chocolate chips     - coconut flakes     - cranberries

     - dates                    - walnuts               - almonds

     - chai seeds            - raisins 

*You could even add some spices to the mix to add some different flavors to them, such as cinnamon or nutmeg. 

Pre heat oven at 350 degrees. Mash bananas, stir in rolled oats and your third ingredient. Grease cookie sheet with coconut oil. Spoon on tbsp sized balls onto pan, lightly smush them down into cookie forms (they don't change their shape much). Bake for 15 minutes and let cool for 5 before serving. DONE! And Enjoy! 

Thanks for reading!
xoxo -N

Chocolate, Banana and Peanut Butter Vegan Cheesecake

For my birthday I was trying to decide what to do about the cake. Seeing as I am vegan and my sisters and dad are gluten free, the options of a cake are quite restricted…or so I thought! When I was on Amy’s site looking at her chocolate orange tarts, my friend Jesie drew my attention to a Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Cheesecake. I am pretty sure I did a double take. What, its vegan?! Are you sure? Let me check the ingredients… well looky here, Amy has done it again! When you click on the link below that takes you to her website, you will see what an amazing cake she has created. It looks like a ‘regular’ cake, something that anyone would love to eat.

http://fragrantvanillacake.blogspot.ca/2012/05/vegan-peanut-butter-chocolate-banana.html

After seeing this amazing cake I thought. I love peanut butter! And Chocolate! And Bananas! So naturally my brain went - - - this is the perfect birthday cake. Anyone who doesn’t like the combination of nuts, chocolate and banana must be crazy, and simply wouldn’t get cake. Also luckily none of my friends have nut allergies.

I am not one to follow instructions well, in cooking and in sewing. When I see ingredients and sewing instructions my first thought is ‘how can I change this to suit me and my likings?” In looking at the list of ingredients I noticed that she used Agave, which is something that I don’t like to use in baking. Instead I chose to use dates. I like the idea of dates for the fact that they aren’t processed and they aren’t as sweet.

To substitute the dates for agave, blend equal parts water to dates until a smooth consistency, like syrup. Then you can use it as a one to one replacement, ¼ cup date puree for ¼ cup agave syrup ect…

I also didn’t have any coconut meat for the cream topping. Instead I used ¼ cup of coconut milk and ¼ cup cashews and blended them together. I am pretty sure the coconut meat would have thickened up the cream more, but the cashew mixture worked just great!

The last thing I did differently is a chocolate topping. I had left over coconut milk and wanted to use it up, and what would make this cake even better? More chocolate! Chocolate always makes things better.

I heated up ½ cup of coconut milk on the stove and when it came to a boil, I poured it over ¾ cup of vegan chocolate chips. Stir them together until smooth and spread it over the top of the cake. I had made sure the cake was in the fridge over night and was set. If I had poured the chocolate over the cake before it was chilled, it would have melted the cake. Place the cake back in the fridge for an hour to chill the chocolate, and thats it, my take on Amy's Vegan Cheesecake. The different flavors were really rich and creamy without being to overwhelming and everyone loved it! My cake did not turn out as pretty as Amy’s but it sure did taste great!

Thanks for reading!

Xoxo - N

Spring Fresh Rolls with Vegan Peanut Sauce :)

My Go-To Meal #1

When I came home this morning from my first job at the gym, I was wondering what to make for my breakfast/lunch. You see, I work at a gym from 6am-9am and then go to my other job at Conexus Credit Union from 10:45am-2:45pm. So I don’t get to eat my meals at what you would call 'normal times'. I always start my day off with three or four pieces of fruit at the gym after my workout. Then I come home and prepare my breakfast/lunch. And today, like most days, I make my awesome spring rolls! There was a time in September that I was eating these 4 days a week for lunch, that’s how much I love them. I have two other Go To Meals hence why this one is titled #1, numbers 2 and 3 will be coming soon!

Ingredients

Spring Rolls

1 pkg of 12' Rice Papers

1 pkg of Field Greens Mix

1 small zucchini

1 medium carrot

½ of a cucumber

½ cup of cilantro

Peanut Sauce

2 tbsp of Peanut Butter

1 tbsp of Hoisin

1 clove of Garlic

1 Lime, juiced

This recipe makes about 6 large spring rolls, if you had smaller sized rice papers this could make about 12-15. 

So I start out with my super amazing vegetable mandolin that I picked up at Costco for $30. Probably one of the best buys I ever made and not that expensive! First thing I do is julienne my carrots, cucumber and zucchini, throw them in a bowl and mix them together. Next I chop up the cilantro and wash my greens if needed. I listed field greens on the ingredients, but you can use any leafy greens you like. Such as spinach, kale, romaine, chard, ect. Today I used field green mix I picked up from Superstore and added in some Red Chard I had in my fridge.

Also, if you want to add different vegetables, go ahead! I have added yellow pepper, cabbage, avocado, and cooked beets to mine. I just find I always have cucumber, zucchini and carrots on hand, so those end up being my base.

Then I soak my rice paper in water for 1-2 minutes(depending how hot the water is), just until its pliable and easy to roll, and add my ingredients onto the center. I do my layers like this: Cilantro, greens, then veggie mix. I find the veggie mix weighs down the lettuce and makes it easier to roll. Finally roll it up like a burrito and you got yourself a super fresh spring roll.

The Sauce.

This is my all time favourite sauce, I could (and sometimes do, shhh) eat it by the spoon full. Its super easy to make and the ingredients are pretty basic.

All you have to do is: take the four ingredients, place them in a bowl and mix them together. DONE!

Now you can enjoy your spring rolls with peanut sauce! 


Thanks for reading! 

xoxo -N