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

Want S'more Pie, a gluten free and vegan dessert!

S’mores. A summer time favourite for many and a staple when camping. But who says it has to stop there? Why not double the chocolate and marshmallows and put it into a pie? To me, that sounds amazing especially since I turned it into a vegan S’more pie!

I got this idea about a month ago when I was making the frosting for my Charmed Cupcakes for my vegan party. When I took the icing out of the fridge I noticed that it was the perfect consistency for making a pie. *insert lightning bolt… Hey I just bought marshmallows… chocolate… S’MORES! And the rest is history!

The pie is really easy to make, it just takes some prep time and some waiting time in the fridge. So if you are wanting to make this for Thanksgiving I would suggest making this a couple days before and when you are ready to serve it just throw the marshmallows on top and broil them. That way you can save up some space on your counters and your stove. Plus I love that this is a no bake pie too, so if you do end up making it on Thanksgiving you wont have to worry about taking up room in your oven.

Want S’more Pie

Gluten Free Graham Cracker Crust

1 pkg of gluten free graham cracker crumbs

¼ - ½ cup maple syrup

¼ cup of melted coconut oil

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and stir until moist. Pour onto a pie tin and using your fingers evenly flatten out mixture. Place in the fridge for about an hour or until chilled.

Chocolate Filling

1 can of full fat coconut milk
1 cup of chocolate chips (vegan), I used Enjoy Life Brand 

Put can of coconut milk in the fridge over night. Open and remove all liquid so only the solidified coconut milk is left. Place chocolate chips in a glass bowl over a pot of boiling water and gradually melt the chocolate. You don’t want to heat up the chocolate too fast or else it will burn.
Once melted combine the hardened coconut milk and melted chocolate and stir until smooth.

Pour over chilled pie crust, making sure it is evenly distributed. Place in the fridge for 2-3 hours or over night.

Marshmallow Topping

1 pkg of vegan marshmallows

When ready to serve place as many marshmallows as you desire on top of the pie, ( I only had half a package) set pie under broil in your oven and roast the marshmallows until golden brown. Watch carefully because they will burn easily!

Cut, Serve and Enjoy!

Banana Strawberry Ice Cream with Vegan Chocolate Chips

 I would like to dedicate this post to all of you who are reading this now, to those of you who read my blog yesterday, and to those who will read my blog in the future. I am so proud and happy to say that I have reached over 5000 hits, and I couldn’t be more excited!! It has only been 5 months and the response has been overwhelming, so I guess I am doing something right?  It is so crazy to think that people are actually reading the things I write and making the meals I create.  So in honor of this awesome milestone of mine, I decided to celebrate with some dessert!

With my sister Ashley on banana island this past week bananas have been popping up everywhere, from Facebook, Youtube and our conversations. So I am not surprised that I was craving this sweet treat tonight after supper, banana ice cream. But not just any banana ice cream, strawberry flavored ice cream! I had just bought fresh strawberries at the grocery store this week and while banana ice cream is delicious, strawberry ice cream is better....with chocolate chips!

If you are a banana lover like me and my sister, you will love her blog post and You Tube channel. Naturally Ashley is a natural heath coach and a banana enthusiast and can take a regular banana and transform it into meals you wouldn’t have even imagined! She just posted 8 Banana Recipe Meals using only bananas and she saved the best one for last, the ice cream. She is an inspiration of health and beauty and you can check out her blog here, her You Tube Channel here, and her on Facebook here.

I have stolen her recipe and added the strawberries!

Ingredients – 1 serving

2 ripe bananas, sliced

3-4 ripe strawberries, sliced

Slice bananas and strawberries, 1/4-inch thick. Make sure the bananas are ripe with lots of brown spots!!

Freeze in a single layer on a cookie tray lined with parchment paper — or in one layer in a resealable freezer bag, laid flat — until solid, at least 6 hours. (I usually freeze them overnight)

Transfer to food processor OR Vitamix/high powered blender.

When you process the bananas, they’ll first go sort of granular, then you’ll start to notice it going a bit creamy near the edges. Once this happens, scrape down the sides of the bowl and continue to blend, scrape, blend, scrape, etc. until the whole thing is a smooth, silky, creamy, moussey dream. This whole process should take 3 to 4 minutes in the food processor and 1- 2 minutes in the Vitamix. 

Serve right away with any toppings you like! I chose vegan chocolate chips :)

Thanks for reading!

Xoxo -N

Again look what my adorable Rottweiler, Stella accidentally did! She thought she was being sneaky by gently licking the glass behind my back but sadly no. It fell of the side table and smashed everywhere! Thanks sweetheart, I was done anyways! 

  

Chocolate Zucchini Muffins, Vegan Gluten Free

Recently I have had the need to bake something, mainly because I have been craving something chocolate. So I was looking around the internet for some chocolateness and came upon this recipe for chocolate muffins. The recipe looked fairly simple and I had most of the ingredients at my house which is usually a deciding factor for me. If the ingredients list has something new that I have to buy I am reluctant to use it. Mainly because if I have to buy a new ingredient that I will only use in this recipe, what happens if it sucks?! Then I have this random container sitting in my cupboard taking up space, and my kitchen is small as it is.

So after I made that amazing hashbrown casserole (found here) I decided to keep the ball rolling and try out this new recipe. I got the recipe from a vegan website but true to form I needed to make some changes to it. I never do things by the book, its not fun that way. I used zucchini to reduce the amount of oil I used, also I used carob power along with the cocoa to, again, reduce the cocoa in the mix, plus I had it in my cupboard and figured I should use it. If you want to look at the original recipe click here.

The muffins turned out really good, especially for gluten free and vegan. They are a dense muffin but still full of chocolaty flavour. The next time I try them I am going to do a regular gluten batch and I am going to put more zucchini in them, just to see how they compare. Once those are done I will let you know how they turn out!

Ingredients - Makes 12

1 cup of fresh orange juice, about 5 oranges

½ cup packed brown sugar

1 cup of rice flour

1 cup of coconut flour

1 tsp of baking powder

½ tsp of baking soda

¼ tsp of salt

¼ cup cocoa powder or carob powder

½ tsp of cinnamon

¼ cup of coconut oil, melted

¼ cup of zucchini, minced

½ cup of vegan chocolate chips

Directions:

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. and get out muffin pan and liners.

- In a medium mixing bowl combine juice and sugar together, whisk together until well combined.

- In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together flour’s, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa and carob powder and cinnamon.

- Add oil and zucchini to juice/sugar mixture and whish until well combined

- Add flour to oil mixture and stir until well blended together. Stir in chocolate chips, you can ever save some to top each muffin with.

- Divide batter between muffin cups and bake for 18-20 minutes.

- Let cool for 10 minutes and serve!

Thanks for reading!

Xoxo -N

Vegan Chocolate Cherry Raspberry Cream Truffles

I love the way a woman’s mind works. Especially mine.

Like most of my fellow females (I assume), I deal with very conflicting ideas in my head. One minute I think to myself I really should eat more raw fruits and veggies and cut back on my processed foods (chips are the devil) and fats. Ever since I got back from Mexico I have wanted to do a 21 day raw challenge but have been putting it off. I have great intentions but lack the motivation right now. Hopefully one day in the near future I will just get off my ass and do it, until then I get to eat these awesome treats!!

That’s where the conflicting ideas come in, one minute I am thinking about eating fruit and salads the next minute I am thinking about lasagna and pizza bites. And scrolling through Fragrant Vanilla Cake’s blog doesn’t help my situation either. That’s where I went yesterday and unfortunately/fortunately I came across one of her newest posts: Raw Raspberry Rose Cream Truffels. Cue the angels singing, I have found Holy Grail of desserts. They looked amazing and I couldn’t wait to try them for myself. I quickly made a grocery list and thought about what I was going to do differently than what she had laid out (like no rose water). Forget about wanting to cut back on treats, fats and food that isn’t healthy, I had a mission!!

I didn’t stray too far from what Amy did, but I made some slight changes to fit my tastes. Such as I took out the rose water and added cherries. At first I tasted the cream with just the raspberries and it just seemed a little blah, so thankfully I had frozen cherries in my freezer! Because the raspberries are so tart they had trouble over powering the nutty flavour of the cashews, so by adding the cherries added the perfect amount of sweetness that really evened out the flavour. Also I used dates because I didn’t have any of the nectar she was talking about, and I feel better about using dates because its one less processed thing I am putting in my body! Finally the chocolate sauce. I decided to use just chocolate chips and coconut milk because I am lazy. Its only two ingredients and I really love the taste of the vegan chocolate chips!

I couldn’t have been happier with how they turned out! They are the perfect treat, they are light and creamy, not too dense, not too sweet and they taste similar to ice cream. Devon really liked them, as wel as all the ladies I work with. Not that any of them are picky, but its good to know other people love what I make too!

 

To see Amy’s original post click here.



Some chocolate covered ones with some plain. Remember, please no judging my pictures, it's how they taste that matters!!

 Raspberry Cherry Filling:
9 majool dates, diced + 1/4 cup filtered water
1 1/2 cups raw cashew pieces (soaked for 4 hours or overnight)
1/4 cup filtered water
1/4 tsp sea salt
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/4 cup coconut oil (warmed to liquid)
1/2 cup organic frozen cherries
1 cup organic raspberries

Chocoalte
1 1/2 vegan chocoalte chips
1/2 cup coconut milk


Combine dates and water into a high power blender and blend on high until smooth. Add cashews, water, sea salt, vanilla and blend until smooth again. With the processor running, add the coconut oil and process another minute until well incorporated. Add the raspberries and process until smooth. 
 Pour into a flat Tupperware container (it cools off more evenly than a bowl), and place in the freezer until firm, but scoopable.  Like scooping out ice cream, dig into the mixture and form tbsp sized balls, this is going to get really messy so be prepaired if you are letting little ones help roll!  Place on parchment paper, and once they are all rolled, place back in the freezer to harden. 

Meanwhile, make the chocolate. Put chocolate chips and coconut milk into a large glass bowl. Place a large glass bowl over a medium pot of boiling water, so that the steam from the water will melt the chocolate. Dip the filling balls into the chocolate and place on the parchment paper.  Once they are all dipped, place them back in the freezer to set completely.  Enjoy! 
You can store extra in the freezer, if there are any left.... 

Thanks for reading!
xoxo-N

Super Saver Brownie and Cookie Bites

Have you ever been really excited about trying a new recipe that you slot out time on your days off, take a special trip to the grocery store to get the ingredients, all to find out that the recipe SUCKED BIG TIME? I have and it sucked big time.  

I had wanted to make gluten free, vegan brownies and chocolate chip cookies from scratch because I am a sucker for pre packaged baking mixes. I thought it was time to tie on my apron, roll up my sleeves and do it like my grandma used to. So I searched the internet for some of the best recipes, printed them off and bought the ingredients.

 

The night my sister came over with her awesome egg nog was the night I had decided to bake. I had just finished the cookies when she arrived and I was super disappointed with them. They were dry, crumbly and a bit tasteless. For me if I am going to eat cookies, they better be damn good cookies!! None of these eating bad cookies just because, I want them to be amazing so I don’t feel bad about eating half of the plate!

After that disappointment I moved onto the brownies, which I thought were going to be so much better than the first disaster. NOPE! No such luck for this gal! The taste was a bit better than the cookies but they turned out super dense and super dry. I was really sad now, all of this time, effort and money wasted. Well actually my husband didn’t mind the cookies, he said that they weren’t THAT bad after eating 4 of them. But I didn’t want THAT BAD COOKIES, I wanted AWESOME COOKIES! So technically all was not really lost.

 

Then Ashley and I had a great idea. Why waste the two batches when I  could salvage them and make bite sized brownie and cookie bites. My spirits were up again , I COULD and WOULD have something delicious to eat after all. I used the cake ball method and crumbled up the brownie mixture and my sister thought that bananas would be the perfect binding ingredient. I agreed, who doesn’t love bananas and chocolate. Then I thought about adding dates, they will add more sweetness and even more binding!

Now, I am not saying to go out and purposely make a bad batch of brownies or cookies just to make these. Just, if you ever come across that horrible situation where that one recipe turns to crap and you are about to throw it out, know that you have another option to save all that time and money!

Vegan, Gluten Free Brownie and Cookie Bites

1 8x8 Dry Batch of Brownies or 12 Dry Cookies

1/4 cup of Coconut Milk  

2 Medium/Large Bananas

5 Dates, Soft

Blend bananas and dates together in the blender. Crumble the brownies/cookies into a bowl until all of the lumps are gone. Gradually mix the banana mixture into the bowl until you get a nice moist batter, if you have left over bananas dont worry, just drink them! Roll the batter into bite sized balls and place in the frige to firm up. I also rolled mine in coconut for a special touch!

*I did make the cookie ones, but my nephews ate them all before I could take a picture!!

*You could also roll them nuts, chocolate chips or any other type of toppings!

*If you dont have dates, you could use 2 tbsp of peanut butter! YUMMMMM!

*This would work also if you had left over cookies or brownies that have gone dry (when does that happen? not too sure but I bet it does on occation). Just use less bananas and dates!

Thanks for reading,

xoxo -N

Super Soft Banana Brownies, Vegan and Gluten Free

Something that I really love about my jobs is that I have Mondays off. I can get SO much done on Mondays, like cleaning the house, laundry and even quilting! Maybe its because my husband isn't home...

So in celebration of having a day off I was in the mood to bake something, but I wasn't quite sure what. I started to think what I was in the mood for, sweet? savory? sour? And what I came up with probably has something to do with Halloween: I thought CHOCOLATE. Not that I haven't been sneaking my vegan chocolate bars in every couple days (or maybe hours, I don't know if there will be any for the kids) but I was thinking something more substantial. How about Brownies, I thought to myself? Those sound awesome (I'm really smart)!! They will be the perfect snack for the quilting retreat I have this weekend! In which I will finally be posting something about fabric, sorry guys Food has just taken over my life lately I havent got in enough time in my sewing room. 

Gluten Free Brownie! 

I have made a lot of brownies in the past, but just recently I started doing the black bean brownies. This is where you take a can of black beans, blend them up, add them to a premix brownie package and bake them. SUPER SIMPLE, vegan, and really good. However, they can become dry, which is my pet peeve of brownies. So I got to thinking what would make them moist?

Regular Brownie!

Bananas!! The perfect solution to any baking dilemma. They add moisture and a great flavor to any baking and I just happen to have 8 bunches of bananas in my house right now. Next I thought about adding coconut milk, its dairy free and will add a rich smooth texture to the bananas. 

Now that I had my idea I just needed my box of brownies. Superstore has a great Organic Brownie mix that only has 5 ingredients and they are dairy and egg free. This is the mix I use for my black bean brownie mix. But then I thought, what about doing a gluten free mix too? You can never have too many brownies. So I bought both!!

Ingredients 

Regular Brownie! Looks so good!

1 Brownie Mix
2 Medium Bananas
1/4 cup of Coconut Milk 
1/4 cup of Chocolate Chips, vegan

Pre Heat oven to temperature listed on the box. Blend the bananas and the coconut milk together in a blender until smooth. Gradually add banana mixture to the dry brownie mix and chocolate chips, until you get the consistency of a brownie batter. If you are using large bananas you might end up not using all of your wet mixture, and thats okay. Basically you just want to add enough to get it wet and thick. You don't want it to get too soupy or else they wont set.
Place in the oven for the allotted time on the box. Let cool. ENJOY!

I did this for both boxes, the Organic Regular and the Gluten Free one and the Gluten free one turned out a little stickier, but for me thats not a bad thing. 
I loved the results of them, I don't think I will go back to making the black bean ones. 

Stella finds it hard to look at Mom

This was going to be the end of my post, however my husband informed me this afternoon that our little girl Stella broke into our kitchen and ate ALL of the Gluten Free ones. Luckily I had tried one late night so I can tell you that they turned out great. I guess I wont be taking those to the Quilt Retreat!

So I just had to post some pictures of her! And as Ron Burgundy would say: 
I am not even mad: that's amazing! 

She looks so sad

She feels really bad, and she promises never to do it again.

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

Chocolate Orange Hazelnut Tarts, Vegan and Gluten Free

This year for Thanksgiving I wanted to bring a dessert that I would be able to eat and that I could share with everyone. Looking on Pinterest I found the most amazing dessert recipe by Amy of Fragrant Vanilla Cake. The title of her recipe is what initially hooked me, Dark Chocolate Orange Hazelnut Tart, if that doesn’t say decadence, I don't know what would.

 So I clicked on the picture and went to her site to see if it was something I could pull off. Thankfully, her ingredients and instructions were really simple and easy to follow! I have posted her recipe link below, so you can see how amazing hers turned out.  

http://fragrantvanillacake.blogspot.ca/2012/05/dark-chocolate-orange-hazelnut-tart.html

Enjoy Life is the brand of chocolate that I used in making my tart. They are listed as Vegan on the label as well as gluten free!  They are the most amazing vegan chocolate chips ever! I honestly think that these taste just as good as any chocolate bar out there. They are also nut, soy, wheat, mustard, sulfites, fish and sesame free!  

There are a couple minor things that I changed in order to make Amy's recipe:

1. I used Quinoa Flour instead of the almond flour or hazelnut meal. The flour is mild tasting, so it doesn’t change the taste of the dessert, also its still gluten free!
2. I substituted Coco Natura Coconut Sweetener for the brown sugar/maple sugar. Its just as sweet, and it's 100% natural and free from additives and artificial flavorings.
3. Instead of the suggested Mandarin Napolean or cognac, I just so happened to have a mini bottle of Grand Marnier. 
4. Finally instead of doing one large tart, I made mine in muffin tins. I love making individual sized portions, they are easy to serve and they are super cute!! However, because the portion size change when doing muffin tins, I had to double the filling in order to get a good ratio of crust to filling. To ensure the tarts were easy to remove I greased the bottom of the tins with coconut oil. 

I was extremely happy with the outcome of my mini chocolate tarts. The crust was sweet and solid, a perfect compliment to the soft, rich taste of the chocolate filling. Everyone at Thanksgiving was complimenting them and how they couldn't believe that they were dairy and gluten free. Some thought that the crust was too sweet, which is something that is easily altered in your own rendition of Amy's recipe. 

I really suggest you make these for your next family get together. They are really easy to make and yet pack a really big punch of flavour.

Thanks for reading!

xox -N