Peanut Butter Chocolate Bars

Original Poster: I Bake He Shoots

I had first seen this recipe a few weeks ago now and thought it looked amazing. I'm not sure how I stumbled across it but I bookmarked it as soon as I did cause I knew I would have to try it out at some point. I made these just yesterday and tried them this morning...maybe, possibly for breakfast.. but they were amazing! Very sweet! I really like the creamy peanut butter taste mixed with the crunchy Rice Krispies texture. Then of course the chocolate on top is just amazing too. The best thing about it is that it's SUPER simple to make!

Ingredients: 
2 cups Rice Krispies cereal
1 1/2 cups peanut butter
2 cups confectioners sugar
1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp. vegan butter melted and divided
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup non-dairy semi-sweet chocolate

Directions:
1. Butter an 8x8 pan and line it with parchment paper that hangs over the edge of the pan just a little bit. I used non-stick foil because that's what I had on hand. This also worked fine.
2. In a large bowl, combine the cereal, confectioners sugar, peanut butter, vanilla and 1/2 cup melted butter.
3. Press mixture into prepared pan. Make it as flat as possible.
4. Melt chocolate. Microwave in 30 second increments, stirring and repeating  until chocolate is completely melted.

5. Add in your remaining 2 Tbsp. of melted butter to your melted chocolate. Mix together well.
6. Spread chocolate mixture over the peanut butter mixture.
7. Place in refrigerator for at least an hour until set. I left mine in overnight and it was perfect the next morning.

Product Review: Don't Be Piggy Meatless Sausage Patties

I thought I would mix the blog up and start doing some product reviews as well as recipes. I love trying new vegan products and to be honest, on the weeks when I'm not feeling well and am not really doing much cooking for myself, it will be much easier to keep up with posts! So here we go, my first product review - if you've tried this yourself, please let me know what you think of it!

Last weekend my husband and I went to Wegmans for the very first time. It reminded me a lot of Whole Foods, which I love so I was excited to see what all they had to offer. I actually saw this towards the end of our grocery trip - and I'm glad I did. I've tried many brands of vegan sausage patties, and to be honest, they're all pretty good to me. I'm not super picky. If it tastes any way close to the real thing, I will eat it! I've had the Gardein brand of sausage patties when they first came out and I think these taste very similar.. and they DO taste very close to real sausage. I didn't even know Wegmans had their own brand of things like this but I would definitely recommend trying them out if you have a store near you. I saw that they also had a 'Don't Be Chicken' and 'Don't Have a Cow' theme too. So there are more meatless options to try out if you are interested!

This is how I like to incorporate the patties into my breakfast: in a sandwich! I just toasted some bread, heated up the patty, some tofu scramble that I already had made, and added a little vegan mozzarella cheese! It made me think of a local restaurant I used to go to where I got egg sandwiches almost weekly for breakfast. However, this is much much better AND cruelty free. There's nothing better than that!

   

Brussels Sprout Chips

Original Poster: Epicurious

This past weekend I decided to FINALLY give Brussels sprout chips a try. I've seen them pop up on Pinterest a lot and I always thought they looked delicious, I just never got around to making them. I love Brussels sprouts and was craving them so I thought why not try to make them a different way this time. This recipe is a-maz-ing. I used half of a small basket of Brussels sprouts that I bought at a local farmer's market and I will shamefully say I ate them all. The entire batch that I made, I ate! However, they shrivel up to next to nothing so...That is what I am telling myself to not feel guilty about it! I'm never hesitant about throwing down as many Brussel Sprouts as I please but this recipe does use more oil than I'd typically like so the next time I make it, I will cut back on the oil even more than I did since I was halving the recipe. For the sake of making this least confusing as possible, I'm going to just post the recipe from the website because I would assume most people would make larger batches than I did (and I totally recommend that!).

Ingredients:
1 lb Brussels sprouts
3 Tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. salt

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Remove the leaves of the Brussels sprouts. This is the most tedious and time consuming part. You may have to cut the base of each Brussels sprout off in order to remove all the leaves.
3. Spread the leaves out on a tray lined with foil.
4. Sprinkle leaves with oil and salt.
5. Pop in the oven for 10 minutes, flipping the leaves half way through cooking time. Take them out when they're browned and crunchy!

Macaroni Salad

So this is another recipe that I kind of just 'winged'. I went by taste as I added ingredients until it had the familiar taste that I liked! When I think of my mom making macaroni salad when I was young, I remember it being very simple. Mayonnaise, onions and egg whites. Since I'm vegan now, obviously I cut out the egg whites (though I think in the future, tofu might be an excellent replacement) and just used a vegan-friendly mayo. I tried out Just Mayo for the first time and thought it was really good for this recipe. I will definitely be making it again!

Ingredients:
1 lb. box of elbow macaroni
2 cups and 1/4 cup vegan mayonnaise
1 1/2 cup diced onion
1 Tbsp + 1 tsp. Dijon mustard
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. pepper

Directions (very simple):
1. Cook your pasta according to package.
2. Cut onions while pasta is cooking.
3. Pour cooked pasta into a large mixing bowl, add in the mayo, onion, Dijon, salt and pepper.
4. Mix until all ingredients are well blended.
5. It's best when cold, so keep it in the fridge until it's ready to be served.

Garlic Soup

So this post is taken from my first cooking blog I started years ago. I tweaked the recipe a bit but stole the pictures from that post just because I liked them better than the ones I tried taking today. 

I first tried making this garlic soup (also called Cesnecka) when my husband got back from a trip to the Czech Republic. He had it while he was there and raved about it so of course I tried to replicate it. I remember the entire kitchen smelling like garlic when I first made it and thinking I did something wrong. That there was no way Greg would like anything that had THIS strong of a garlic flavor to it. But I was wrong - he said it was really good and after years of making it, it's actually one of my top favorite soups now! Honestly, my favorite part is the toasted bread that you toss in at the end. It's just mushy (which is actually a good thing) and buttery..and just amazing. Now, before I give the recipe - I will stay it's probably not the healthiest of soups. Depending on how much broth you use - it can be very high in sodium. For me with POTS (and usually having blood pressure that is too low), this isn't a problem for me but for other people you might want to add more water instead of broth. I do 3 cups 'beef' broth, 4 cups water. I would probably do half broth if it was just for myself - but since my hubby is eating it too, I try to cut back a little on the sodium. Just enough so it doesn't lose too much flavor.

Ingredients:
8 cups 'beef' broth (4 cups broth, 4 cups water - OR 3 cups broth if going lower-sodium)
6 cloves of garlic
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. marjoram
1 tsp. black pepper
2 Tbsp. vegan butter substitute
5 medium-large potatoes peeled and diced
1 Tbsp. parsley
slices of bread (1-2 per bowl of soup)

Directions:
1. Mash the garlic together with the salt.
2. Place the garlic/salt mixture in a large pot. Add broth and bring to a boil.
3. Reduce heat and let simmer.
4. Add potatoes, marjoram, pepper and butter. Stir.
5. Simmer uncovered until potatoes are tender.
6. Fry pieces of buttered bread and cut into squares.
7. Place 1-2 pieces worth of bread into hot bowl of soup.
8. Sprinkle with parsley.

Peanut Butter and Banana Nice Cream

So this recipe is very simple. I don't have an 'original poster' link to share with you this time because I've made this so many times over the years that I just kind of winged it until I found the perfect amount of everything. However - I will still have this recipe posted on my Spinnin' n' Pinnin' board on Pinterest, so the whole 'pinning' theme is still incorporated!

So, 'nice cream' is basically a cruelty free version of your typical ice cream. To be honest, I've only ever tried making banana/peanut butter and plain ol' vanilla. I plan to branch out more in the summer! However, I made THIS ice cream in the dead of winter. A week before we got a ton of snow to be exact.. Despite all the cold weather we've been having - I still wanted ice cream! I usually eat mine straight out of the blender like this so it's more like soft serve. If you want a more solid, scoop-able texture, just blend it and pop it in the freeze to enjoy later.

Ingredients:
2 frozen bananas
3 Tbsp. chocolate PB2 (You could probably use regular peanut butter too - I just prefer PB2 because it's less calories and fat)
1 tsp. vanilla

Directions:
1. Blend your frozen bananas until smooth.
2. Add in peanut butter and vanilla.
3. Blend until everything is combined well and until you've reached desired thickness.
4. Dig in!

Pumpkin Spice Donut Holes

Original Poster: Sarah Bakes Gluten Free

So this weekend here in Pennsylvania we got snowed in! We got about two feet of snow and while we were stuck indoors, I figured why not bake?! I was randomly very hungry for donuts. I usually don't crave them at all. Maybe once or twice a year I'll whip up a batch of some sort but that's it. Even before I went vegan - donuts were a rare thing for me to eat. Anyway, I also wanted them to be quick and easy. I wasn't feeling the greatest the day I made them so I didn't want something that took a lot of time or a lot of clean up. I did a quick search on Pinterest and this was one of the first recipes that came up.

A quick disclaimer, I didn't make these gluten free because as far as I know, my body has no problem with gluten. However, if you need it to be gluten free, just follow along with the original recipe and make the gluten free substitutions! Also, in the original recipe they were cinnamon sugar donuts. I was out of cinnamon so I just used pumpkin spice instead! Tasted amazing.

Ingredients:
1 cup flour
3 Tbsp. sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 almond milk
2 Tbsp. shortening, melted (I use Crisco since it's vegan friendly)
oil for frying

For the donut coating:
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp. pumpkin spice

Directions:
1. In a pan (or saucepan if you're like me and are a little afraid of frying things), heat up approximately two inches of oil.
2. Mix together your sugar and pumpkin spice in a paper bag and set aside.
3. While your oil is heating up, prepare your donut mixture! In a bowl mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add in your almond milk and melted shortening. Stir until all ingredients are well blended.
4. Using a spoon, make balls of dough and gently drop them into the oil. I'd recommend doing 3 or 4 at a time. Cook on each side for 1-2 minutes or until golden brown.
5. Remove donut holes from pan/pot and place on a towel lined plate to soak up some of the excess oil.
6. After about 10 seconds, pop the donut holes in your paper bag with the sugar and pumpkin spice. Fold over the top of the bag and give it a good (but gentle) shake.
7. Repeat the frying, drying and paper bag steps until all your dough is gone.

They have a nice, fluffy consistency to them. I had a small glass of almond milk with mine!