The Vegan Experiment, Day 17: Mango Bok Choy Stir Fry and Chocolate Sea Salt Blood Oranges

It’s been a long week. This weekend, I flew to Texas to help my best friend’s boyfriend propose to her 🙂 The proposal went very well (she said yes, of course), and I got to begin my official Maid of Honor duties. So much excitement 😀 On the other hand, I’ve gotten very little sleep since Wednesday night, and I will have to pull an all-nighter tonight to finish my thesis chapter, which is due tomorrow. As of now, 7:15 pm, I have 15 pages to write. I totally got this, right? 😉 Anyway, I’ve been writing all day and will be writing all night, so I knew that I needed to take a break to cook a good dinner and perhaps prepare a nice snack to eat while working (in addition to the gallon of coffee I plan to drink…haha).

For dinner, since my Wok has been sadly unused thus far this year, I decided to make this wonderful Mango Bok Choy Stir Fry, with my own additions, of course! I’d never had Bok Choy before, and I’ve never had mango in a savory dish, so I figured today was a good day to try. In addition to the bok choy and mango, I decided to add my favorite vegetable: kale! You can never go wrong with kale 😀 The grocery store was sadly out of green onions, so I made do without.

I also didn’t have white sesame seeds, so I used black ones instead. I also substituted half a tablespoon of gluten-free soy sauce for the tamari. Yum!

To make my stir fry more substantial, I decided to add noodles. I had half a package of Udon left over from my Ramen a couple weeks ago, so I cooked the noodles in a mixture of two cups vegetable broth and 2 cups water.

Even though the recipe called for a regular skillet, I used my Wok 😀 I love cooking with that thing. I put the kale in with the bok choy.

I added the cooked and drained udon to the pan after mixing in the vegetables, but right before the mango.

I topped the whole thing off with some cracked black pepper, and served it with the leftover mango slices 😀 Absolutely freakin’ delicious. Warm, spicy, with a slight sweetness from the mango, and very filling. And I have enough left for lunch tomorrow, which makes me ridiculously happy 😉 This meal is going to be a staple for me this winter.

For a snack, I went with something sweet but not too sugary. I didn’t want just fruit, because it’s not enough to keep me going throughout an all-nighter. When I found this recipe for Dark Chocolate-Dipped Blood Oranges with Sea Salt, I knew I had a winner. I love blood oranges. That color is absolutely gorgeous, and I like that they’re a little tangier than regular oranges.

Happily, I had a bag of vegan chocolate chips on hand (surprisingly, since every time I go near those things, I can’t resist from eating a handful…or two).

This dessert was super easy to make, and absolutely delicious 🙂 It has everything I love about desserts in it, including continuing my love affair with sea salt, and it’s just the right combination of sweet, salty, fruity, and a hint of savory. It’s going to be difficult to save some for tomorrow’s dessert…

All-in-all, today’s vegan meal was a perfect success 😀 I heartily encourage y’all to try out these recipes 🙂 Good eating to you!

The Vegan Experiment, Day 12: Pretzel Bites and Sea Salt Brownies

Thursdays are the best days. Well, this semester, anyway! I don’t have graduate classes or any teaching responsibilities on Thursdays, so I don’t have to leave my house at all until it’s time to depart for my weekly East Coast Swing Dancing meeting 😀 That means I can write my thesis at home, in my pajamas, as comfy as I want to be. It also means that if I feel an irresistible impulse to take a study break and do some cooking, I am completely free to do so 😉 Today was one such day, and because I haven’t had time to do any recipe-testing since Sunday, I figured it was totally okay for me to test two instead of just one. The results were delectable: pretzel bites and double-chocolate sea salt brownies! I’m quite spoiled.

I am a total sucker for soft pretzels…in fact, I would classify it as an addiction 😀 There’s nothing quite like the crispy outside with the soft, doughy inside and any form of topping, whether it be sea salt, garlic, cinnamon, or anything else. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to enjoy any in almost a year because they’re expensive and not quite good for you 😦 Also, since going vegan, I’ve been wary of buying them ready-made, because they’ve usually got butter and other animal products in/on them. But today, when I thought my cravings were going to kill me, I found an easy vegan pretzel bite recipe! It had to be providence.

I haven’t made dough in years, so I enjoyed getting my yeast starter going again, in addition to making the dough by hand. No blender necessary!

I didn’t have any plastic wrap, so I used a Ziploc bag to contain the dough while it rose for an hour 😀

Instead of rolling the dough into ropes and cutting it, as the recipe suggests, I instead pulled off small chunks and formed it into nuggets. Boiling them in the soda-water bath was quite an interesting experience, but it went well!

I brushed the tops with canola oil  and sprinkled some sea salt flakes on them, then popped the pan in the oven. While they were baking, I made two separate toppings: garlic butter (made with Earth Balance), and cinnamon with Turbinado sugar. Yum!

The pretzels came out perfectly golden brown! I topped half with the garlic “butter,” and the other half with cinnamon sugar. And they were just as delicious as I had hoped they would be 😀 I put half the dough in the fridge so I can make some more next week!

I’ve also been craving a good brownie…thesis work is very stressful, and girlfriend needs her chocolate! Most of the vegan brownie recipes I’ve come across, though, have been reviewed as crumbly or cake-like, so I’ve left them alone. Fortunately, I found this simple recipe from one of my favorite blogs, The Minimalist Baker 🙂 I had all the ingredients on hand, and so I got to work as soon as the pretzels were out of the oven.

Also, flaxseed egg substitutes are fun! And so very healthy for you.

The mix was much thicker than regular brownie mix, but it tasted amazing! I used Hershey’s unsweetened cocoa since I didn’t have the dutch variety, and I also used Turbinado sugar, which is my new favorite kind of sweetener!

I also added half a cup of vegan dark chocolate chips. Dairy-free chocolate is so much more delicious than the mainstream processed stuff…it tastes more like pure chocolate instead of chocolate-flavored sugar! So much yum.

I put them into a baking tin, and then, because I freaking love the combination of salty and sweet, I sprinkled sea salt flakes over the top of each individual brownie 😀

I only had to bake them for 24 minutes. After cooling  for 7 minutes, they slid out of the tins very easily. And oh my sun and stars, they are delicious! The consistency is the same as normal brownies, and they are very indulgent and delicate. The seat salt flakes were the perfect addition, as they prevented the brownies from being too rich to eat 🙂 I think next time I may add a pinch of cayenne and see what the dash of heat does. Chocolate and pepper go perfectly together 😀

Today has been very delicious 😀 I can’t wait to see what happens with my day off next Thursday!

The Vegan Experiment, Day 8: Lemon-Garlic Alfredo with Peas, Corn, and Roasted Asparagus; and Roasted Chickpeas

I had several recipes planned to try over the past few days, but life being what it is…well, that didn’t happen. I had to sustain myself on leftovers and PB&J. Not that I’m complaining, since those leftovers were pretty dang good! But I had some extra time today, and decided to actually make a full dinner dish. And then, when I finished my thesis chapter several hours ahead of schedule this afternoon, I figured I should celebrate by making a side dish. Thus was the Sunday dinner born (a rarity for me – I’m usually too busy to cook a full meal on Sunday nights!).

My decision to make the vegan Lemon-Garlic alfredo stemmed from two separate recipes: this one from the Minimalist Baker, and a similar recipe from Food Network. The latter recipe was easier to make, so I just borrowed the roasted asparagus idea from the Minimalist Baker 🙂 I’ve never had cooked asparagus, and I thought it would be fun!

Since they take about 30 minutes to roast, I got them in the oven first. While they were cooking, I began on my side-dish: Oven-Roasted Chickpeas. I picked up a can of chickpeas at the grocery store on a whim, and figured this was the best way to try them out, as I’ve only ever had chickpeas in hummus.

It’s very time-consuming and rather annoying to remove the husks from the chick peas after washing them, but thankfully, I’m in a film class this semester, and our assignment for today was to watch “Anatomy of a Murder,” a Jimmy Stewart classic that’s almost 3 hours long. I was thus well-entertained throughout my cooking today 😀

After the chickpeas were dry, I coated them with the coconut oil and added the spices. Once they were on the pan, I set them aside while my asparagus was cooking. It was time to get the rest of the dinner ingredients together.

I got the water boiling for the pasta, sprinkling it liberally with sea salt. Do not neglect to salt your pasta water!!! Cooking in salty water gives the pasta flavor on its own. Anyway, I used my favorite brand of gluten-free spaghetti, as that’s what I had on hand. By the time the asparagus came out of the oven, the pasta was cooking, and the sauce was blended and ready to go, and into the oven went the chickpeas. At the same time, I put some corn and peas on the stove  to warm up, along with my chopped up asparagus.

When the pasta was done, I mixed about a quarter cup of the pasta water into my sauce, and cooked it up on the stove with some garlic, oregano, and basil. When it was warm and thickened, I turned the heat off, and added the pasta. Isn’t it gorgeous?! All those beautiful, natural colors.

The chickpeas were finished roasting about the same time the pasta finished, which was a timing miracle. They filled my kitchen with a wonderful spicy aroma. It was difficult to not eat them all right then and there!

To go with my meal, I toasted up some vegan multigrain bread and spread it with some vegan garlic butter. Then, because I didn’t want to drink plain old water with such a fun meal, I took a slice of the lemon I zested for my sauce, and added it to my glass of water. Voila! A perfect Sunday dinner.

Unfortunately, I discovered that I don’t like cooked asparagus – the texture is too much like green beans, which I have always hated. Everything else was insanely tasty, though 🙂 It was a good way to round off my first full week of being a vegan. I feel healthier, am more conscious about what I eat, and have lost about three pounds. It’s been a good journey so far!

The Vegan Experiment, Day 3: Semi-Homemade “Ramen”

I really love Ramen. And by that, I mean that I love the pre-packaged, delicious, but oh-so-bad-for-your-health kind that is a guilty pleasure for many people and a staple of living for broke college students. It’s quick, cheap, filling, and decently tasty on cold evenings, so try as I might, I couldn’t break the habit despite knowing bad it is for me. Once I began my new eating resolutions, however, I knew that I would have to walk away. Imagine my joy when, last week, I discovered a recipe that could fill the Ramen-shaped hole in my life! Of course, the original recipe isn’t vegan, and there were some things I wanted/had to change taste-wise, but it’s a really great base recipe and wonderfully versatile.

The first order of business was to get rid of the chicken broth – I brought out my trusty Swanson vegetable broth instead, and it worked wonderfully. Instead of using the processed Ramen noodles, I used organic Udon (hence the “semi-homemade”…I didn’t have time to make my own noodles!), which are ridiculously quick to cook and quite tasty. I also left out the mushrooms; no matter what I do, I can’t get myself to eat a fungus. The very concept grosses me out 😦 I don’t have time to grate ginger, so I usually get mine freshly grated at the market. This time, I unfortunately didn’t have fresh garlic, so at the stage of the process when you’re supposed to cook the grated ginger and garlic in the sesame oil, I put extra oil in the pan, put the heat on low, and added the garlic and ginger, letting the mixture darken and become fragrant.

When the oil and spice mixture was ready, I added the vegetable broth and some spices of my own: cracked black pepper, sea salt, and onion. Yum!

Instead of pre-cooking the Udon first, I added the noodles to the simmering broth, and stewed them in the broth, which was a good choice! The noodles picked up all the flavors of the broth quite nicely. As the noodles cooked, I added one drop of Sriracha to the broth. Yes, just one – adding any more than that with an already spicy soup would have made it unbearably hot 🙂 3 minutes before the soup was ready, I added the kale and carrot shreds so that they would be tender without becoming mushy.

The result was amazing! Hot, spicy, comforting, full of veggies, and lacking the processed taste of the dorm-room version 🙂 The recipe made enough for 3-4 meals, which means I know what I’m having for dinner (and maybe even lunch!) tomorrow 😉 I can’t sing the praises of this meal enough. I am never going back to pre-packaged Ramen.

Oh, and what better way to finish off a good hot meal than with a good cold dessert? I broke out a serving of my favorite vegan gelato, and my day was officially twice as awesome 😀

I’ll be back on Thursday with another post 🙂 Enjoy!

The Vegan Experiment, Day 1: Sweet Potato and Pomegranate Tacos

Now that I am back at home after a very hectic and stressful day of travelling, I am ready to begin my New Year’s resolution: a month of veganism. I’ve planned out my whole menu, including at least 5 new recipes to try per week, did my grocery shopping, and now it’s time to start! Today was the first, and it went quite well, I think 🙂

I had separate meals planned for Breakfast and Lunch, but I was really exhausted last night and ended up waking up at 11 this morning (and may or may not have gotten out of bed until 30 minutes later). School doesn’t start back up until tomorrow, though, so no harm done. I was, however, too late for breakfast, so I settled for brunch instead. When I went grocery shopping yesterday, I was very happy to learn that my favorite brand of gluten-free waffles are also 100% vegan, so I grabbed a box for emergency meals like today’s brunch. It was pretty simple: waffles with a thin spread of Tofutti “Better Than” Cream Cheese and some vegan strawberry jam, along with a side of fresh cantaloupe. I’d never had Tofutti before, but I’m pleased to report that it tastes almost exactly like cream cheese, which made me very happy 😀

Picture from company website.

I’ve already been taking vitamin B-12 and iron supplements since becoming a vegetarian; now that I’m going vegan, I’ve added an Omega-13 supplement and Calcium with Vitamin-D. I like the chewables best…swallowing pills always makes me feel like I’m choking.

Picture from company website.

Dinner tonight came from a recipe that made me decide that trying to be vegan for a month was feasible and possibly delicious: Black Eyed Peas and Sweet Potato Tacos. I absolutely love tacos, but I’ve sadly not had any since going vegetarian. Bean burritos just don’t taste the same. Therefore, I was very happy to test these out, and I am ever so thankful that I did! I left out the onion and the pepper (the former because I forgot to get one and the latter because I hate green peppers with a burning passion), and added some cayenne to the sweet potatoes before I roasted them. I also used whole wheat tortillas instead of corn because I like the texture better.

When stirring the peas and potatoes mix on the stove, I added some dried cilantro. I also added romaine lettuce and shredded kale after taking it off the stove, and then garnished the whole thing with some fresh cilantro. Best. Dinner. Ever. Seriously, it’s surpassed Bean and Kale Stew as my favorite meal. The variety of spices made it savory and earthy, but the fresh cilantro and the tangy pomegranate seeds really brightened it up. The seeds also added almost a dressing to the whole thing because of the not-quite-sweet, not-quite-sour juice when I bit into the seeds. Mmm. I only meant to have one taco, but I had two…and I don’t regret it 😉 And I have enough leftover for lunch tomorrow! This meal has gained a permanent place on my menu…I encourage everyone to try it. You won’t regret it!

Well, that’s day 1 of veganism down for me 🙂 I’ll post again to document tomorrow’s journey. Thank you for following along. If you have any favorite recipes, feel free to share them in the comments…I’d love to try them out!

New Year’s Resolution: Vegan for a Month

It’s been a few months since I’ve been able to post, what with school and working three jobs and quite a bit of traveling shenanigans. During that time, I’ve mostly stuck with the recipes I’ve already blogged about because they’re convenient and I know they work 😀 I haven’t eaten any meat, and have pretty much decided to be a permanent vegetarian, as meat has completely lost its appeal for me. Plus, my health and energy have greatly improved since I gave up meat products, including my fibromyalgia issues, so I can’t really argue with those results!

Anyway, I was really excited at Christmas because I got two vegan cookbooks! The Boyfriend’s mother bought me Vegan with a Vengeance, and my own mom got me the Forks Over Knives cookbook (their website was a big reason I became vegetarian in the first place). I also discovered vegan.com , which has some amazing recipes and tips for vegan eating. I’ve been experimenting with vegan recipes recently anyway, but my love of cheese and eggs has so far prevented me from actually doing anything serious with it. Looking seriously at all my options, plus having the physical books on my shelf, have inspired me. I’ve decided that I’m going to try eating completely vegan for a month, starting when I get back to school next Sunday (January 11th). I have a month’s worth of awesome recipes planned out, and I intend to blog about all of them 😀 Who knows, maybe I’ll like it so much I’ll just stay with the plant-based diet 🙂 Thank you for joining me on this journey!

A Very Vegan Fall Afternoon: Pumpkin Spice Lattes and Apple Crisp Treats

One of the best things about fall is that the university where I work/attend school takes a “Fall Break” in October. I get a four day weekend to relax, sleep, watch Doctor Who…and do some cooking 😀 We had a gorgeous rainstorm in my neck of the woods today, and it made the air smell so much like autumn that it instantly made me think of two things: pumpkin and apple. The urge to do something with these flavors was so insatiable that I went hunting for some recipes, and then walked to the grocery store (in the rain!) to get the ingredients. And hallelujah, was everything delicious. I decided to make a coffee drink of some kind to warm me up after that cold, breezy walk…and of course, I needed a warm dessert to go with it 😀 The result was a homemade pumpkin spiced latte and some mini “apple crisp” treats. All vegan, of course! Talk about an awesome afternoon.

My coworkers (and most of the internet) joke that you know Fall has arrived when Starbucks starts listing its Pumpkin Spice Latte on the menu. Well, as tasty as that drink is, it’s not exactly healthy for you. Starbucks uses several different highly processed syrups and sugars, not to mention all the dairy…and, horror of horrors, they don’t actually put any pumpkin in the drink 😮 So I figured I should make one at home that would be just as tasty and filling, but better for you and completely vegan 😀 When I found this recipe on one of the vegan sites I visit regularly, I knew I’d struck gold.

Her recipe calls for any non-dairy milk, so I used unsweetened almond milk, which is my go-to staple for milk now. I also added half a teaspoon of ginger and one tablespoon of pure maple syrup , and I may or may not have added some extra cinnamon. I really like my drinks to be strong and spiced up 😀 I heated the pumpkin milk mixture before adding the coffee to it, because coffee drinks should be really hot, in my opinion.

The coffee part was incredible. The Boyfriend got me a bag of locally roasted coffee beans at the Farmer’s Market a couple weeks ago (he’s definitely a keeper :D), and I finally purchased a coffee grinder today. I ground the beans right before making the coffee, and the result was so full and rich that I just wanted to savor it for a long, long time. It added some really deep, fresh undertones to the latte. Nothing beats freshly ground coffee.

As for the latte itself, I loved it. I will never purchase one at Starbucks now, because I will only be able to think of how delicious the one I made at home was. If you like pumpkin spice drinks, please give it a shot!

One of my favorite apple desserts is my mom’s apple crisp: sweet with a bit of tang from the apples, and the perfect sweet granola-esque crust. However, I don’t really have enough time in my day to make a full crisp, plus, it has a lot of sugar in it…far too much for one person 😀 So, after searching for an easier to make version (and finding nothing), I decided to make my own! Here’s the recipe (portioned for one person…you can double/triple/whatever as necessary):

• 1 Fiji apple, cored and cubed (I prefer to leave the skin on, but you can peel it if you want)
• 1 TBSP cornstarch
• 2 TSP lemon juice
• 1/4 cup + 1 TSP brown sugar
• 1 TSP vanilla
• 1/4 cup quick cook oats (can use more if desired)
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• Optional: 1/2 tsp ginger to taste

Set over for 375 F. Core and cube the apple (I use Fiji because they’re crisp and good for baking, without being as tart as a Granny Smith); set aside. Mix the cornstarch, lemon juice, 1/4 cup of brown sugar, and the vanilla together in a bowl. Add the spices and oatmeal, and blend thoroughly. Add the apple cubes into the bowl, and stir to coat each piece completely. Line a baking sheet with tinfoil (you may also want to lightly spray the foil with vegan cooking spray), and spread the apple mixture over the tray. Make sure that the pieces aren’t too close together. Bake for 5 minutes, then remove from over, turn all the pieces over, sprinkle the remaining teaspoon of brown sugar over the pieces, and put back in the oven for 7 minutes. Remove from oven and serve immediately!

My word, these little bites tasted just like mini apple crisps! The apples were crisp on the outside and soft and apple-pie like in the middle. They were just sweet enough to satisfy my sugar cravings without being overpowering. Next time, I think I may add more oats to the topping, but I do love these treats as is. Mmm. Next up: Vegan Pumpkin French Toast for dinner with The Boyfriend tonight 😀 I’ll let you know how it goes!

Gluten-Free Vegan Pumpkin Pie Cookies

Fall is my favorite season (well…almost. Winter will always be my favorite, but just barely). I love the colors of the leaves, the gorgeous cool weather, rainstorms, spiced apple cider, and getting to wear coats again. Seriously, coats are fantastic. I have many of them 😀 Anyway, the one Fall trend I never really understood was “pumpkin everything.” It’s probably because my only experience with it was pumpkin pie, which I never really liked because the flavor is so strong, and the texture is so gelatinous. But The Boyfriend absolutely loves pumpkin, so I figured I should learn to give it a go…in a relatively healthy way, of course.

Enter this recipe for pumpkin pie cookies! They looked absolutely phenomenal, and wait, they’re gluten-free AND vegan?! Count me in 😀 I made some pretty substantial changes to the recipe in the link, so I’ll give my version here.

• 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter (I didn’t sub it in equally for the almond butter because the flavor is so strong, it would overwhelm the pumpkin. Just use enough to bind everything together).
• 1/2 cup pumpkin puree
• 1/8 cup maple syrup
• 1 TBSP Truvia
• 2 TSP pumpkin pie spice
• 1 TSP Cinnamon
• 1/2 TSP freshly ground ginger
• a dash of sea salt
• 1 TSP vanilla
• Optional: 1/4 cup mini vegan dark chocolate chips (the cookies are just as good sans chocolate…but I am a chocolate junkie :D)

Preheat the oven to 350. Mix everything but the chocolate chips in a medium bowl. I recommend using a spoon instead of an electric mixer, because you don’t want to over beat it. Make sure that the peanut butter is well blended. Check the consistency by holding a spoonful of the batter up over the bowl – if it doesn’t slide off the spoon, it’s thick enough 🙂 If it’s still too thin, add more peanut butter a tablespoon at a time. You can also add more spices to your taste, but I find that this particular blend is the perfect balance for me. Cover a baking sheet with waxed paper, and drop small spoonfuls of the batter onto the pan. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until golden. They will still be very soft, but that’s ok…these treats are basically a pumpkin pie in cookie form, so they should be gooey. Just make sure they hold together 🙂 Best served warm!

These little cookies are the perfect fall bite: soft, warm, fragrant, lightly chocolatey and perfectly spiced snacks with just the right amount of pumpkin. I made a triple batch of them, and they didn’t last through the work day. Everyone was asking for seconds, and I had a hard time not eating half of them myself 😉 After trying these cookies, I am definitely a pumpkin convert. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go procure more pumpkin and make some more cookies…

Avocados are Awesome: Vegan Corn Chowder and Dark Chocolate Mousse

I discovered avocados when I started my healthier eating journey last summer. I’d always been put off by them before because of the texture, but after months of listening to people rave about the health benefits, I thought I’d give it a shot, so I made an avocado “mayonnaise” for my lettuce wraps. It was delicious, and from that moment I was hooked. I’ve been incorporated this gorgeous superfood into my diet ever since, and I started using it as a creamy substitute earlier this summer with my first attempt at vegan ice cream. After a long and stressful workday, I came home to see that I still had two avocados sitting in my fridge, just pleading to be eaten. So I decided to take a break to test out two incredible-looking recipes that utilized avocado: dinner and dessert.

I love, love, LOVE chowder. The creamy base lends itself so well to a blend of various textures (and I am all about those textures, baby), and it’s so incredibly versatile. Of course, the problem for me now is that it tends to be unhealthy, full of dairy products that make me sick, and ridiculously time-consuming. So I went on a hunt for a vegan corn chowder recipe that would also be easy to make, and presto! This simple and easy recipe came along. When I looked at it, I loved the fact that it used avocado as the creamy base, and since it only has 5 ingredients, I had to try it.

My buddy the Dalek Chef decided to pay a visit.

My modifications to the chowder base were relatively few: extra corn and plenty of cracked black pepper. I gently pureed the soup in the Vitamix, then transferred it to a warm pan on the stove to heat it up. Once it was sufficiently hot, I put the mixture back in the Vitamix and blended it a little more. I left it chunkier than the recipe recommends…again, I am all about that texture 🙂

For an added depth of flavor, I took the left-over corn, and gently pan-roasted it. I heated up some olive oil, sprinkled the corn with paprika and a dash of cayenne, and then roasted it until it was a beautiful golden-brown color.

I garnished the bowl of soup with that roasted corn and a dash of paprika, and I must say, it was a pretty sexy bowl of soup. I ate every last bite of it…it was the perfect balance (for me) of hot, creamy, and spicy, and the bits of corn in it really made it come alive. Definitely saved a bowl of it for lunch tomorrow, but the temptation to get seconds was hard to resist!

Since this is a tough work week, I knew I needed more chocolate in my life. And avocado goes with chocolate almost as well as peanut butter does. Cue this recipe for an almost-vegan chocolate mousse. The only thing that prevents it from being vegan is the honey – I could have used maple syrup, but I’m saving it for a later recipe. So I just used organic local honey instead. Also, I absolutely am psyched that the recipe calls for chia seeds. I put those things in almost everything breakfast or dessert related. So much protein, and they’re so freakin’ versatile! Love it.

I used coconut milk instead of raw milk to keep it as close to vegan (and good for my stomach!) as possible. I picked up some gorgeous raspberries this week, so I also blended those in with my mousse mixture, because raspberries go wonderfully with dark chocolate, and they have some great health benefits (potassium, calcium, and antioxidants) to this superfood-packed dessert.

Look at those gorgeous colors! Only nature can produce something so beautiful 🙂

I garnished my mousse with more fresh raspberries and a drizzle of local honey. Absolutely delicious…so good for you, and totally guilt-free! If you want it sweeter, you can add more honey or maple syrup, but I like it the way it is 🙂 Now, time to brainstorm what else I can make with avocados….

Vegan Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge

Who doesn’t love fudge? Seriously, that stuff is amazing. Every year at Christmas, I make a mint dark chocolate fudge for my family, and it rarely lasts for 24 hours. It’s thick, creamy, rich, and completely decadent. There’s two problems with it, though: it’s far too rich, and it’s made with dairy, so it’s not very good for my stomach. So when I found myself craving fudge this morning, I thought, “Why not look for a vegan recipe?” And then, voila! In the magical land of Pinterest appears this gorgeous easy recipe for peanut butter fudge.

It’s ridiculously easy to make! I love peanut butter, so my mouth started watering as soon as I clicked on the recipe link. However, when I see a peanut butter dessert, the first thing I think is “This needs chocolate” 😉 So, of course, I brought in my vegan cocoa powder (about 1 tsp) to make more of a Reese’s flavored fudge. Yum.

The recipe calls for a double boiler, but ain’t nobody got money for that, so I had to get creative and make my own 😀 We have this huge metal stew pot in my kitchen (the previous tenants at my old house left it behind, and I was more than happy to claim it!), so I put about 4 inches of water in it and brought the water to a simmer. At that point, I put all my ingredients into a smaller metal pan, and suspended it above the simmering water. It worked just as well a store-bought double boiler, and there was no difference in the consistency of the mixture.

This fudge is absolutely perfect – it’s creamy without being too rich, sweet without any added sugar or processed nonsense, and has a lovely velvety chocolate texture that practically melts in your mouth. There is a slight coconutty aftertaste because of the coconut butter, but I rather like it. If you want to mask the taste, just add an extra tsp of cocoa powder 🙂 If I’m not careful, I may eat the whole batch tonight. Mmm. Vegan definitely doesn’t mean boring or bland, and this fudge proves it beyond the shadow of a doubt!