Peanut butter rice crispy treats with chocolate chips!!!

Another winning dessert from Alicia Silverstones "The Kind Life". Imagine rice crispy treats with peanut butter minus the questionable marshmallows. This is an amazing treat that I can only make once in a while-otherwise we can't control ourselves around here!

1 box brown rice crisps cereal (or rice puffs)
1 1/2 cups brown rice syrup (or honey, or agave, or whatever liquid sweetener you desire)
fine sea salt
3/4 cup almond butter (again, feel free to substitute any nut butter you like, we use a combo of almond, pecan, cashew & peanut because we can't decide!)
1/2 cup nondairy chocolate chips

Pour rice cereal into a big bowl. Heat syrup and nut butters together with a pinch of sea salt. When the syrup & nut butter liquifies pour over the rice cereal and mix well with a spoon. Once the mixture has cooled a bit add the chocolate chips (which aren't totally necessary, but add alot of pizzaz!) and stir. Then you push press the mixture into a 9 inch by 13 inch baking dish and wait for it to be ready-which it is right away, gotta love that instant gratification!

Semi-homemade

One of our only fine dining places here in SoHum is called "The Groves". It is also a winery and has some divine wine. The only main dish I can get there is pasta with mushrooms, asparagus and truffle oil. It is very subtle and delicious, especially as leftovers the next day. Here I paired it with a delicious and classic avocado sandwich with lettuce from our very own deck garden!

P90X

I am currently doing the P90X program with my husband and I have been loving it. We are on week eight of the twelve week program. We always enjoy Tony Horton's silly comments and he seems to know when to encourage you to "bring it!". Tony is the brainchild of P90X and also the leader of the group, or the "band" as he calls it! To my surprise and delight I just found out that Tony Horton is a vegetarian. He is also in his fifties! What a STUD!!! This gives me so much joy! He is in such amazing shape and has done it without eating meat-now if he would just give up the dairy-I guess I can't expect that, but a girl can dream. If you don't know what P90X is, I encourage you to look into it, it might just give you the results you have been looking for.

Sushi Catering anyone???

If anyone around the So Hum area is having an event and they want sushi at it, I am your girl. I recently catered a friends birthday party because she loves my vegan sushi so much she wanted all her friends to try it. It was a huge success and I am ready for more! I can customize your rolls to your desires and guarantee your taste buds will be singing a happy song at the end of the day!

A spring delight

A few weeks back we were eating ALOT of asparagus. Now I am finally getting a chance to blog about it. First off, in order to enjoy asparagus it is common knowledge that one needs a mayonnaise like substance to dip into. Being a veganish lady I use Veganase. I like to add a bunch of chopped garlic to it to make an aioli sauce. For this meal I also cooked up some quinoa (a vegan girls best friend...full of protein and vitamins and minerals). When the quinoa was done cooking I added chopped basil and dried cranberries to it. I also served this meal with fresh salad and homemade dressing. On the side we had sweet potatoes with the customary Earth Balance. I love cooking and eating this way!!!

Kale Chips

I have been hearing all about how you can bake Kale and make it taste like potato chips. Well I just had to try this bag from our local natural foods store the other day. It took all of about 7 minutes for the hubby and I to scarf down this entire seven dollar treat. Naturally now I have to start making it. The ones I bought are dehydrated and since I don't have a dehydrator I plan on removing the hard inner part of the kale and baking them at 300 degrees until crispy. I am going to try and recreate the taste of these and so I plan on putting cashews, lemon juice, miso, nutritional yeast, apple cider vinegar, habanero powder, garlic powder, and salt into the food processor and then coating my kale with it before putting it into the oven. I will report later on how they taste, in the meantime ... maybe you should try something new today too! I am just so inspired by all of the vegan food blogs I see. Just yesterday I found this cool one called www.vegandad.blogspot.com. It was so fun to read all about all of the food being cooked in other kitchens by other people that looks so good to me. I hope I can inspire with my blog as I am constantly encouraged and motived by different blogs I see.

TACOS TACOS TACOS!

We are on another taco kick. We love the sprouted corn tortillas by "Food for Life". I coat each side in Earth Balance and then with my cast iron pan I fry them until they are soft, only takes a few minutes on each side. In the meantime I cook up some refried or black beans (usually from Eden brand, I'm not soaking my own these days) and some brown rice or barley. When those things are done cooking I put the beans, rice, chopped green cabbage, avocado, corn, and cilantro on top of each tortilla. The result is just fantastic! We also ate yams with earth balance one night with these and it was SOOO GOOD!!!

Ravioli's and things

Yummy, Rising Moon has a vegan ravioli with butternut squash in it and my whole family likes it. Its a good thing when everyone eats the same thing, less work for me! Tonight we ate it with red sauce (organic bottled stuff, I added pureed sweet potatoes to it to spice it up a bit) and with homemade pesto. We also dined on steamed broccoli with Earth Balance and a salad with beets, pumpkin seeds, dried cranberries, cucumbers and pecans. I also made a dressing of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, mustard, garlic, strawberry jam and a dash of salt and pepper. A divine meal was had by all. Even my dad who ribbed me mercilessly about my new vegan eating. I know he means no harm though, its just very different from how most people have been taught. I am grateful that I have educated myself and that I know I am doing the best thing for me. Each to their own in this world.

Fruity French Lentils

I have been away on a vacation....I know I have been neglecting my blog, but thats all over now. I was so excited to come home and cook some of my own food. Its not easy getting good vegan food in strange little towns like Gilroy and Prunedale. We were also in Santa Cruz and it was a paradise of good vegan food. I grew up there and was excited to eat at some of my favorite places, nothing is as good as home though! The first meal I made when I came home last night was a dish I found in "The Kind Life". Its called fruity french lentils.

1 cup lentils
2 cups water
1 inch piece of kombu
pinch of sea salt
1 tablespoon strawberry fruit spread
3 tablespoons orange juice
1 cup chopped strawberries
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/8 cup chopped basil


Wash and rinse the lentils then bring them to a simmer for about 30 minutes. I added kombu and a little sea salt to the water.
Then rinse the lentils and rinse them with cool water. In another bowl mix together a half cup of chopped walnuts, about a cup of chopped strawberries a bit of minced basil, and some parsley if you like it-we don't love the stuff so I omitted that part. Mix the lentils into the bowl. Combine a tablespoon of strawberry fruit spread and three tablespoons orange juice. After you have mixed the OJ with the jam pour over the lentils. It is so simple and so GOOD! I also cooked up some bok choy with garlic, ginger and toasted sesame oil. To finish off the meal I made some good ole fashioned pesto and topped some Miltons crackers with that! The pesto is not so much a recipe, I just combine a few bunches of basil, some walnuts and pecans, a lot of garlic and some olive oil in the cuisinart until the mixture resembles pesto consistency.