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

Vegan Peanut Buster Parfait

Chocolate. Peanuts. Banana. Ice Cream. That is all...

Okay maybe not all, but that's all that's really important here. Who doesn’t love the amazing combination of peanuts, chocolate and ice cream? I bet most of you aren’t even reading this, you just want to skip to the bottom so you can eat one right now!! Let’s play a game! Let’s see if anyone is really paying attention. I love dogs, dogs are awesome, awesome awesome, awesome! Cats are great too! I love cats, catty cat, cats!..Anyone read that?  Haha!

 This dish really brings back childhood memories of my dad taking my sisters and I to Dairy Queen where I would order the peanut buster parfait. I would never finish it and I am sure my dad knew this but being the awesome dad he was he never once said “no honey you should just get the hot fudge Sunday its smaller” He knew that there was something special about ordering the PBP that a Sunday just couldn’t live up to!

So one hot summer night I was trying to figure out what to make for supper and I was coming up with a blank. I wasn’t going to turn on the stove or the oven because that would be just silly. So I opened the freezer and there was my answer! Frozen Bananas! The perfect summer time supper! I mean I don't live with my parents guys, I can have ice cream for supper. I’m kind of a bad ass.

So I whip up the banana ice cream and throw it in the freezer while I make the chocolate sauce. It probably only took me 8 mins to throw this all together which is a good and bad thing. Good because this doesn’t take long to prepare, bad because this doesn’t take long to prepare. If I had a constant supply of frozen bananas in my freezer I would probably make this every night! But when you think about it it’s not that bad, its really just bananas, peanuts, cocoa powder and dates! A pretty guilty free snack/supper if you ask me!

Vegan Peanut Buster Parfait 

2 frozen bananas – pureed into ice cream using a high speed blender

Chocolate sauce

5 majool dates

3 tbsp cocoa powder

Water

Blended at high speed, gradually adding water until you get the desired consistency.

Peanuts – you can find the Dairy Queen peanuts at Superstore in the bulk section!

I hope you enjoy this awesome Summer time treat!

Thanks for reading!

Xoxo -N

Raw Vegan 'Pasta' Salad

I had the awesome pleasure of going to the lake last weekend for my husbands family reunion. The weather couldn’t have been better and it was really great to see everyone again, seeing as these only happen every 5 years.

All of the food was included with the registration fee but because it was mostly meat I brought all of my own food which mainly consisted of fresh fruit and veggies. I found that because I only brought out fruit and veggies that’s all I ate, well I wont lie, I did have some chips and alcoholic beverages! But definitely ate a lot healthier by bringing my own food.

Some of the things I brought out were ingredients for a mango date salad, some bananas, and this awesome raw ‘pasta’ salad. I originally was going to bring an actual pasta salad but I didn’t want to feel all bloated, plus I didn’t want to boil water in the 30 degree heat! So why not have a raw one and use zucchini noodles instead! They are fresh, easy to make and a lot healthier for you than the grain version.

I used my mandolin to make my zucchini noodles, but you can use a sprilralizer, a vegetable peeler or a knife!

Raw ‘Pasta’ Salad

1 medium zucchini, noodled

2 tomatoes, chopped
5-8 majool dates, chopped

½ yellow pepper, chopped

½ orange pepper, chopped
½ cucumber, chopped
1 lemon, juiced
*optional kalamata olives

Then I got home and thought about making one with a creamy sauce, still have it vegan but I kind of wanted to experiment with flavors. So on Wednesday I broke out the avocados and my Vitamix and came up with this amazing creamy raw vegan dressing!


Raw Vegan Pasta Dressing
1 avocado 
½ cucumber
2 cloves garlic
5 leafs basil
1 lemon, juiced

*optional 1 tbsp nutritional yeast

Put all sauce ingredients into a blender or a food processor and puree until smooth.Toss with the chopped veggies and 'noodles' and serve!


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. 

Rawkin Homemade Sushi with Wasabi

I crave sushi about 5 times a month, unfortunately we only go out for sushi about once every 2 months. So you can see my dilemma, my cravings are not being satisfied! Oh the horror! But seriously I love sushi, it is one of my favourite meals and when I eat it, I eat a lot. That’s why I love going out for sushi at DK Sushi House here in Moose Jaw, because they have 'all you can eat' for $24.00 per person. We usually get a group of 8 people together to share the endless rolls, which leads to us complaining of how full we are when we leave. My brother in law Sean usually brings up that One time we made him eat the last piece, 9 months ago, that sent him over the edge of fullness. Something that we thought he would have gotten over, but apparently not!

So one night I stopped by Ashley’s house after work and after talking for an hour, I got the craving for some sushi. I mentioned it to Ashley and her eyes lit up with excitement, she wanted to go to! But she wondered if they would make her rolls without rice in them, she just wanted the nori and the vegetables. We figured we would call and ask before going down to make sure they would and success, they said they would! We didn’t get ‘all you can eat’ because it was just the two of us, but we definitely left full!

Me eating my seaweed salad, and Ashley's no rice sushi rolls!

While there we got to talking about making our own homemade sushi, raw and cooked. I had tried making traditional sushi before with Devon, but it was really soggy and I ended up just scraping off the rice and veggies and eating it like a stir fry. So naturally I was a little apprehensive about making it again. Ashley suggested that we try making raw sushi with cauliflower rice instead, she had noticed someone else had made it and was interested in making it herself.

The next day I was still craving sushi and thought about just making my own. Heck I am not made out of money, so going to Sushi House again was out of the question. Luckily I had cauliflower in the fridge and was curious about how it would turn out. So I got to work on ricing the cauliflower in my Vitamix and thought “how is this going to stick together?”…. Dates, of course! So I threw some chopped up dates in and pulsed until well mixed. I rolled one up, tasted it and thought ‘WOW! Ashley needs to taste this!’ So I immediately texted her to get her butt over to my house for an amazing supper! Little did I know, Ashley was going to SuperStore to get ingredients to make raw sushi too! Great minds think alike!

We were both really satisfied with the result of the sushi, the only thing is you have to eat it immediately or else the nori wrappers get soggy. That could have to do with the quality of the paper or with the water content of the cauliflower, either way, you have to basically roll ‘em and eat ‘em.

 

Ingredients 6-10 rolls

1 pkg raw nori papers

1 head of cauliflower

5 majool dates, pitted and diced

1 red pepper

1 avocado

1 small zucchini

½ cucumber
1 bamboo rolling mat

Thinly slice all of the vegetables, using a mandolin or your knife. Rice cauliflower in high speed blender, only pulsing. Optional step, remove cauliflower from blender and pour into a bowl, take a couple paper towels and try to extract as much water as possible. Throw back into blender and pulse the dates in.

Lay out nori paper on a bamboo rolling mat, the longer side parallel to your body. Spread out a thin layer of cauliflower rice, in the middle of the paper lay equal amounts of vegetables, try not to add too much or it will be difficult to roll up. Using the rolling mat, roll up the paper tightly. Using some water to seal off the edge.

I like to have the seam of the paper on the bottom of the cutting board while cutting. Also it helps to wet your knife before cutting too!

Cut into sections and eat immediately! Serve with soy sauce, wasabi or ginger and enjoy!

After I wrote this post we went out again for sushi a few weeks later and Ashley brought something that I totally fell in love with: homemade wasabi! It tasted just like the typical green stuff you get from the restaurant, only this was all natural. I mean who would think of making their own wasabi and bringing it to a sushi place? My brilliant sister Ashley, thats who. So here is the link to her site to get this super easy recipe so the next time you make your own raw sushi or when go out you can bring your own too!

Thanks for reading!

Xoxo -N

A Stell-Raw Banana Caramel Pie

Have you ever eaten a whole pie all to yourself? I have! And now you are wondering what kind of pie, aren’t you? It was a lemon meringue, homemade by my grandma at Christmas a couple years ago. It all started off with one bite, then another, then holy crap it’s all gone. I went from having a bite of dessert to having THE dessert.  

So this Easter I wanted to make a dessert that not only I could eat but both of my sisters could eat too. Almost all desserts that get brought to big family suppers contain either eggs, dairy or gluten, all of the things my sisters and I don’t eat. So what could I make? I had a ton of bananas in my house, so something banana. That’s when I thought of a banana caramel pie, and I was going out on a limb and make it raw too!

What I love about this pie recipe is that it doesn’t take long to prepare and it only contains four ingredients! It is gluten free, dairy free, egg free and can be any type of nut or seed crust you want. So if somebody in your family has a peanut allergy, then you can use almonds, or vise versa. But the big kicker about this pie is that it is delicious! I had my family try it and everybody raved about how good it tasted. Even grandma, who has never tried anything like this before, gave me rave reviews. To see her reaction my sister Naturally Ashley video tapped her reaction, click here to see it!

I came up with the name Stell-Raw Banana Caramel Pie because this Easter we lost our Rottweiler Stella to gastric dilatation. Needless to say, this Easter has not been that joyous and writing this post is really hard. She passed away so suddenly that it will be truly hard to get over her loss, she was such a huge part of my life and I miss her so much.  So I thought that I would name this pie after her, mainly because one of her favourite foods was bananas. I would be in the kitchen peeling a banana and she would be able to hear it from anywhere in the house. I am not surprised though because I would always give her my last piece, when it came to her I was always such a push over. So in memory of my little, I dedicate this post to you Stella, I miss you girl! 

Ingredients

Crust

1.5 cups of cashews, or your favourite nut

10 majool dates, pited and soaked in water at room temp for 1 hour

Carmel Sauce

2 bananas

8 dates

¼ tsp vanilla, powder or extract

Filling

7 bananas

This is quite a simple pie to make. In a food processor or high speed blender, blend the cashews and dates together. Pour into a pie pan and using parchment paper flatten evenly all the way around. Put in freezer for 15 mins.

While crust is freezing blend the bananas until smooth, then add dates and vanilla. Set on high and puree until creamy and smooth.

Take crust out of the freezer and thinly slice 3 of the bananas and place neatly on the crust. Then thinly slice the other 3 bananas and gently fold in with the caramel sauce. Pour on top and then top with one more banana sliced.

Depending on how full you want the pie you can add or subtract the amount of bananas. I used seven!

Place in the freezer for at least 3 hours and serve immediately. Enjoy!

An upclose picture of the curst and the caramel sauce.

Stella and her sister Lucy!

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