White Chocolate Cherry Smoothie...

I don’t know about you but I’ve been addicted to cherries lately. I probably buy a few pounds per week and every morning I eat a bowl of them for breakfast. I’ve always loved cherries, but this summer they seem to be particularly ripe and delicious, and I just can’t get enough. I’ve also been really addicted to peanut butter lately, and I’ve had a strange craving for white chocolate which got me thinking this week that I might like combining all three of these things in one way or another.

This morning after a little bit of deliberation I decided to try mixing them together in a smoothie. It was either that or a dessert and I just didn’t feel like baking today. As it happens though this smoothie is like a dessert in a glass, super yummy, and decadent! Actually - as weird as it sounds this smoothie tastes a little bit like Christmas - probably the nutmeg. Anyway it came as a big surprise to me because I didn’t have any real idea of what the end result would be. I can honestly say it far exceeded my expectations, and if you like decadent dessert like smoothies definitely give this one a try!

White Chocolate Cherry Smoothie 

1 1/4 C Vanilla Almond Milk
1/3 C Vegan White Chocolate Chips
1/3 C Frozen Cherries
½ Frozen Banana
** 2 Tbsp Peanut Butter & Co’s White Chocolate Wonderful Peanut Butter
1 ½ tsp Vanilla Extract
1 tsp Maca Powder
1 tsp Lucuma Powder
½ tsp Mucuna Powder
1/8 tsp Ground Nutmeg
1/8 tsp Ground Cinnamon
4-6 Ice Cubes

- Place the vegan white chocolate in a small saucepan over medium heat. After about a minute the chocolate should begin to melt, add in a 1/4 cup of the almond milk and stir the two together until the white chocolate has melted fully.

- Remove the saucepan from the heat and stir in the vanilla extract.

- Combine the white chocolate mixture with the cherries, banana, peanut butter, maca, lucuma, mucuna, nutmeg, cinnamon, remaining almond milk and ice cubes in a highspeed blender. Blend on high for 90 seconds or until the mixture is smooth.

- Pour into a glass and garnish with a dash of nutmeg and a few dried cranberries or cherries for a festive feel. Enjoy!

*** Note - I don’t know if there’s any real substitute for Peanut Butter & Co’s White Chocolate Peanut butter, but you could just use regular peanut butter and add in more vegan white chocolate to compensate. Also you can use fresh cherries rather then frozen if you prefer, but then you may want to use more ice to get the same consistency.*** 

Chocolate Cinnamon Power Shake...

I’ve always been a big fan of protein shakes/smoothies. Since I’m not normally a big eater in the morning these have always been my salvation. Since my last cleanse however I’ve been mostly sticking to fruit for breakfast in the morning, and so I haven’t bought protein powder or anything like that in ages, but lately I’ve been really craving a good ‘ole chocolate protein smoothie. Today since I was particularly ravenous upon waking, - and since I still don’t have any protein powders - I decided to just throw together my own little power shake.

I was amazed by the result. It tastes so good, and so decadent, and it’s very reminiscent of some of my favorite protein shakes. After I scarfed down a peach and a mango, I drank this, and it really hit the spot. I might just make it again tomorrow and the next day and the next! 

Chocolate Cinnamon Power Shake 

1 C Vanilla Almond Milk

1 Ripe Banana 

2 Tbsp Cocoa Powder 

1 tsp Lucuma Powder

1 tsp Maca Powder 

½ tsp Ground Cinnamon 

1 tsp Vanilla Extract 

** 2 Tbsp Peanut Butter & Co’s Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Peanut Butter
1 tsp Instant Espresso Powder (Optional) 

6 Ice Cubes

- Place all ingredients into a highspeed blender and blend on high for 60-90 seconds until completely smooth.

- Pour into a glass and enjoy! 

*** Note - If you don’t have or can’t find Peanut Butter & Co’s amazing Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Peanut butter, Sub your favorite peanut butter, with an added dash of cinnamon and a small handful of raisins. *** 

Randy's Grilled Shishito Peppers with Sriracha Satay...

Shishito Peppers, ever heard of ‘em? Yeah, I hadn’t either until my brother-in-law bought me Randy Clemens “The Veggie-Lover’s Sriracha Cookbook” for Christmas. I flipped through this book with amused interest at the variation of recipes that included Sriracha and then I came across the beautiful photo of grilled Shishito peppers and thought “Oooo, now that looks good!” followed by “Now what the heck are they?” A quick Google search informed me that Shishito peppers are a - generally - sweet, finger sized pepper from Japan. Interesting, I thought. The photo that accompanies the recipe is absolutely mouth watering and the Sriracha Satay Sauce it’s paired with is incredibly drool worthy. I’ve been dying to make this recipe since December, but didn’t think I had a hope in hell of finding Shishito Peppers.

Then last week my husband and I decided to make a spontaneous trip to the Japanese Market - Initially for noodles and miso - and what should I happen to find sitting in the produce department? A huge bag of Shishito Peppers! Wow, I couldn’t believe my luck. Not knowing how I’d like them, I grabbed only one bag with the intention of making Clemens recipe ASAP.

Boy oh boy do I wish I’d bought another bag of these peppers, because they were really fantastic and so unique. To me they weren’t quite as sweet as say a bell pepper, they had a slightly bitter edge - though I can’t be certain if that’s from the pepper flesh, the seeds, or the charring - but nevertheless I liked them. Once I started in on my plate I couldn’t stop until every last pepper had been drenched in Satay and consumed in it’s entirety, and that’s another thing, the Satay!

Look at that beautiful Sriracha Satay!

Now I love me some peanut butter anything, and I sure as hell love me some Satay sauce. In fact, at restaurants when I find a good satay and there isn’t enough food to dip into it I’ve been known to spoon the stuff directly into my mouth.- what? It’s delicious! - So I’ve had a lot of good satay in my time, but Clemens Sriracha Satay is probably one of the best I’ve ever had. It’s creamy, it’s smooth, it’s spicy, it’s garlicky, it’s sweet, it’s fan-freaking-tastic! It’s also not overly peanuty which might be a major plus to any peanut haters out there - my husband, a confirmed peanut hater loved the sauce.

One of the most brilliant things about this satay is that it’s made with coconut milk, that milk gives it an extremely rich, and velvety consistency, and the sriracha packs so much flavor but not an unbearable amount of heat. I also love that this satay is simmered on the stove and served warm, that makes a lot of difference in my opinion, and it’s so good that it would be perfect over any grilled vegetable, tofu, seitan, or tempeh. It would even be good thinned out as a dressing over a grain salad and some steamed broccoli. The Satay made a large batch so I can’t wait to get creative with the leftovers.

If you can find Shishito Peppers in your local Asian market, pick them up, give them a try and let me know what you think!

Chocolate Berry Superfood Smoothie...

I love all kinds of smoothies but there are three kinds that I enjoy more frequently then others. One is the obligatory green smoothie, the second is a berry combo smoothie, and the third is the chocolate protein nut butter smoothie. I tend to drink green smoothies more often in the summer, a lot of berry smoothies in the winter and the chocolate nut butter combo is a wild card. I’ll take it whenever, wherever. Lately however I’ve been enjoying this third variety more often. It seems to be my new ‘go-to’ smoothie on working days, the added protein from the protein powder and nut butter, plus the cacao and the maca keep me energized long into the day.

The only problem is that I get board pretty quickly when forced to eat the same thing all the time. So Monday I was craving a smoothie, something chocolate and creamy like my typical pre-work smoothie but the idea of the same old same old just had me feeling blah. I thought about making a berry smoothie as I have a lot of delicious berries newly on hand but that just sounded so plain. After a few moments spent pondering my dilemma in my kitchen something dawned on me. “Who ever said you can’t combine a berry smoothie with a chocolate nut butter smoothie?” No one that I know of anyway and so that’s exactly what I did.

It may sound weird to you to combine berries with chocolate and peanut butter but I assure you it’s quite delicious - mind blowing really - and while the color leaves a little something to be desired the taste is phenomenal. And really, that’s all that matters isn’t it?

Chocolate Berry Superfood Smoothie 

1 Scoop Sun Warrior Chocolate Protein Powder
1 3.5oz pack frozen acai berry puree
6-8 frozen strawberries
1 Banana
1 tsp Lucuma Powder
1 tsp Maca Powder
1 Tbsp Hemp Seeds
1 Tbsp Earth Balance Coconut Peanut Butter
3/4 C Unsweetened Almond Milk
4 Ice Cubes

- Place all ingredients into a high speed blender and blend on high for 60-90 seconds until smooth and all the ice is crushed.

Enjoy before or after an energizing workout, or on days you have to go to work!

*** Note - You can use any kind of peanut butter or protein powder you like, but I find the Sun Warrior Protein Powder has a superior taste. As for Earth Balance's Coconut Peanut Butter, I highly recommend this. Not only is it freaking delicious but adds another flavor note to the overall smoothie. More about this peanut butter in a review post to come.***

Vegan Mofo #10 - Kim’s Peanut Pasta Salad with Fried Tempeh Bits...

Vegan Mofo #10 - Kim’s Peanut Pasta Salad with Fried Tempeh Bits

The Book - "Skinny Bitch: Ultimate Everyday Cookbook"
The Author - Kim Barnouin
The Recipe - Peanut Pasta Salad with Fried Tempeh Bits
Page # 127
Difficulty - Easy
Duration - Roughly 30 minutes, 20 minutes if you don’t use tempeh.

All right, I know, I know, I cooked something from Skinny Bitch. So what? Get over it! I know So many people, vegans, vegetarians and omni’s who hate the ladies of Skinny Bitch fame, hate the whole concept, hate the attitude, hate the books. I know, and I get it, but personally they’re not telling you anything you don’t already - or shouldn’t already know - they’re just telling it to you in a not so nice way. Big deal. So they swear and call the reader fat? So what? They’re just words, they don’t really hurt do they? And lets face it, if you are fat then you know you’re fat, and if you’re skinny then no worries right? That’s how I think of it anyway and I personally think the books are a riot. In the beginning I was just like the rest, wouldn’t even give the book the time of day. In fact when it first came out I mistakenly thought it was a ‘diet’ book, and ignored it, I didn’t even know it was about veganism. I read this book after I’d already gone vegan, and after I’d already read wonderful books like "Food Revolution" I read it because I try to read anything and everything that’s vegan, vegan support you know? Vegan solidarity yo! Trust me when I say I understand some people’s distaste, but the books are fact filled, and there are gems beneath the cliches. You certainly can’t deny that they got a shit load of attention when their first book was published, and anytime someone gets attention for promoting a healthful vegan diet, it’s gotta be a good thing right?

Originally I didn’t set out to buy this cook book. It just kind of happened. I was standing in the book store with a 40% off coupon burning a whole in my pocket, and the pictures in this book were just so beautiful. I love good food photography by the way, and really hate it when cook books either have no pictures or very poor quality ones. It was the pictures that first caught my attention but then I started reading the recipe titles and found myself intrigued. I also liked that the book included a lot of helpful tips about organics, and that it promoted a healthful vegan diet, full of whole foods and whole grains, with many alternatives to sugar. Admittedly I don’t use this book as much as I’d like to, but that has more to do with the fact that it uses a lot of meat substitutes, seitan, tempeh and tofu. Things I generally don’t eat. I have cooked a handful of things from this book though, and so far everything has been good. I particularly liked the apple cinnamon muffins and pancakes.

When I was flipping through this book at the bookstore, the Peanut Pasta Salad with Fried Tempeh Bits was the first recipe that really got my attention. I love pasta salad, I love Asian flavors, and I love peanuts, to have all three of these things together in the same recipe was kind of mind blowing. Growing up my mom made a really wicked pasta salad, and when I make pasta salad I use the same general recipe. It’s great. The dressing is an olive oil and vinegar base with Italian herbs like parsley, oregano, and basil mixed in with a few other things. It’s fantastic and always goes over well. Except the first time I made it for a party here people seemed a little skeptical. For some reason people here in the Midwest make pasta salad with a mayo dressing, which I find a bit confusing. See in Vancouver Macaroni salad is made with a mayo dressing, and Pasta salad is made with an oil and vinegar dressing. Here in Chicagoland it would seem that both macaroni salad and pasta salad are made with a mayo dressings. Which leaves the actual shape of the pasta to be the only discernable difference between the two. Now I’ve always hated macaroni salad, pouring mayo over pasta is just wrong no matter where you come from. So suffice to say I’ve never had a bite of this monstrosity that people around here call ‘pasta salad’ However as good as my pasta salad is, and as much as I love it especially on a warm summer’s day, sometimes eating the same Italian inspired flavor gets old, and boring. That’s why I love this recipe so much. I can really appreciate it’s creativity. I never would have thought to make an Asian style dressing for pasta salad, and it never would have occurred to me to use peanut butter on any pasta dish that wasn’t Pad Thai, but I’m so glad I found this recipe and saw the light.

The flavors in this salad are bold, and brilliant. You get that nice chewy mouth feel of al dente pasta, with that sweet, nutty richness of peanut butter. Except in my case I ended up using Almond Butter because I made this salad for a party at which I knew would be people with peanut allergies. I love also that the vegetables are julienne so they’re nice and thin and quick to cook, and I love that the vegetables are blanched rather then boiled. Blanching is perfect because it cooks the vegetables just enough to get them tender, but not enough to take away their crunch and that’s what I love about pasta salad, the chewy pasta with the crunchy vegetables.

The only other thing I changed about this recipe was that I left out the tempeh, but that was because I’m not a big tempeh fan to begin with, plus I was brining the salad to a party of omni’s that might have otherwise ignored the salad. You never want to present them with something too ‘strange’ after all. However if you like tempeh I’m sure the salad would taste great with it, it would probably add a nice meaty texture and enhance the nutty quality of the whole dish. If you add a little liquid smoke into the pan when you cook up the tempeh it’ll give it a nice satisfying smokey flavor as well. I think too, that if you want to leave the tempeh out as I did, but want to add a little something, unsalted roasted peanuts would be a good choice, or if you know people with peanut allergies too, then slivered almonds. I ended up just loading up on the sesame seeds which was great too, but next time I’m going to do peanuts for sure! I’ll just have to keep the salad all to myself.

Despite whatever your personal opinion of Kim Barnouin and Rory Freedman or their "Skinny Bitch" books I have to say this recipe is a total win, and the "Skinny Bitch: Ultimate Everyday Cookbook" really does have a lot of good things to offer.

PS: Oh I nearly forgot, i also changed the pasta. I couldn't find brown rice spirals so i used gluten-free vegetable spirals which are my favorite anyway.

Super Multi-Purpose Cereal Bar....

Rice Krispies Squares - or Rice Krispies Treats as they are commonly referred to in America - are a universally loved junky snack food of children, and is it really any surprise considering children are exactly who they were invented for? A little interesting history here that you may not be privy to is that Rice Krispies Squares were invented by the Home Economics Department of the Kellogg Company as a fund-raising idea for the Youth centered group Camp Fire Girls sometime in the 1920's. The treats originally consisted of Rice Krispies Cereal, melted butter, and melted marshmallows, and their sweet, sticky, yet crunchy texture was apparently an instant winner. Now I don’t know about you, but marshmallow’s to me have always tasted a bit like chalk. That’s not to say I didn’t appreciate Rice Krispies Squares as a kid, they just weren’t my favorite, and since becoming an adult I can’t recall the last time I actually ate a ‘traditional’ Rice Krispies Square.

Since the 1920's many variations on this quick and simple recipe have surfaced, and now I throw my hat into the ring with my slightly healthier, much tastier, protein packed, yet still a bit junky concoction.

Super Cereal Bar

Dry Ingredients

2C Puffed Brown Rice Cereal (I used Nature’s Path, but you can use anything, even actual rice krispies although read the ingredients list because in some countries rice krispies are vegan and in some countries they are not)
1 1/4C Rolled Oats
1/3C Ground Flaxseed
1/4C Sesame Seeds
1/4C Hemp Seeds
1/2C Dried Cherries
1/4C Sweet Cacao Nibs (Optional)
Dash Cinnamon
Smaller Dash Nutmeg

Wet Ingredients

3/4C Organic Peanut Butter
1/3C Brown Rice Syrup
1tsp Vanilla Extract
1tsp Almond Extract
1-2tsp lemon juice
1Tbsp Maple Syrup

- Toss all dry ingredients into mixing bowl and stir to combine.

- Heat a small pot over medium low heat, then add wet ingredients, stir constantly until mixture becomes smooth and warm.

- Pour wet mix into dry mix, fold in and stir until everything is combined and sticking together. ***Note you may need more wet ingredients at this point. You don’t want the mix to be wet and gooey but you do want it sticking. If it’s still dry and crumbly and there’s still a lot of loose ingredients in the bottom of the bowl add another quarter to half cup of peanut butter, and another quarter brown rice syrup to the pot with a dash of extract and lemon juice, stir till smooth and then add once more to the dry ingredients. ***

- When everything is sticking together nicely grease a square or rectangular pan, then press mixture evenly into it. Once mixture has been evenly pressed into pan, cover with parchment paper and refrigerate for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Cut into squares, or desired shapes and enjoy. Will keep in the fridge for 1-2 weeks.

These things are seriously good! I’m telling you, and the greatest thing about them is you can really play around with the ingredients. You could add any kind of seeds you want, you can add any dried fruit that you want, and you don’t have to use peanut butter. You could use almond, or cashew or any nut butter really.
Though I do recommend trying it my way once, as they are very, very tasty!

The other thing I love about these bars is that they can be eaten as a breakfast, a snack, or a desert. They’re perfect for if you need to bring food on a long drive, perfect to bring camping or hiking, and they’re a great ‘on the go’ food. You gotta love a treat that’s multi-purpose right?

Enjoy!!