For me, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups were hard to give up. I tried Justin’s Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups but wasn’t super blown away. Luckily, today, I had an aha! moment.

“Aha!” I said, rifling through my freezer. “I will make chocolate coconut almond butter truffles!”

These had four ingredients (you could add flax seeds). The almond butter was fresh ground from the bulk section. Whole Foods 365 brand keeps it cheap.

I didn’t write down proportions but it’s super easy and I bet you could make them, too.

1. Melt semi-sweet chocolate in a double boiler – put a ceramic/glass/metal bowl over a pot of boiling water. This melts the chocolate and keeps it from burning. Some semi-sweet chocolates have milk products in them, which is annoying, but you just need to check the ingredients.
2. Mix up the almond butter and shredded coconut in a separate bowl. You should be able to make little balls of this coconutty almondy paste that somewhat stay together.
3. Drop the little ball in the melted chocolate and roll it around with a spoon, until it’s coated.
4. Remove the chocolate-coated ball with the spoon and put it on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper. Freeze.
5. Remove to eat, ravenously. You have to keep them cold-ish or they’ll make a mess.

Here one is, closer up. Enjoy!

**Side note: I thought of entitling this post “Nuts and Balls” but decided that that would not be family-friendly enough for teh Facebooks. 

Haven’t settled on a New Year’s Resolution yet?  You could follow in the footsteps of four of my best friends, who decided to take a month-long vegan plunge starting this month.  Still a little too much commitment?  Take an idea from my mom, who’s decided to start keeping her Mondays meatless every week in 2012.

Eating meatless can be tricky, especially if you don’t know what you’re doing, andespecially if you don’t have good support.  That’s what we’re here for!  And to help you with that support, here’s your first Meatless Monday recipe of the New Year!  This is for Citrus Tofu by our lovely chef Melanie.  If you don’t like tofu, you could use tempeh or seitan, or even just veggies. This recipe is from our Chomp! Cookbook that just came out.  Pick up a copy of the cookbook at our upcoming Chomp! dinner this Wednesday for just $5!

Read the rest of this entry →

It’s starting to get a little colder outside, so let’s spice it up a bit!  Here’s one of my favourite recipes: Tempeh Corn Chorizo, also featured in our recently published cookbook.  Like it?  Pick up our cookbook for just $5 at our Volunteer Meeting this Wednesday or at the next Chomp!  Or email us at info@plantsanimals.org and arrange to get it another way!  (It will also be available online soon!)

Enjoy your Meatless Monday and spread the love!

Follow the jump for the recipe. Read the rest of this entry →

I remember a little over 2 years ago, when I first went vegan, it was nearly impossible to find a vegan cooking show online. But in the past year online shows have been sprouting up everywhere! From Vegan Black Metal Chef to Cooking With the Vegan Zombie, creative and fun shows have been gaining ground!

Here are a few episodes of my favorite online cooking shows, check these out and stay tuned! There may be a Denver cooking show coming out soon… Just sayin’

The Vegan Zombie: Daiya Cheese Stix!

Vegan Black Metal Chef: Episode 6

Vegan Epic Meal Time: PETA Pita

The Vegan Drag Queen: Episode 1

Wait, you haven’t gotten all of your holiday presents this year yet, have you?  Of course not.  Which is good, because we’ve got pretty much the best present ever for everyone on your list:

The Recipes of Chomp! A Vegan Community’s Cookbook

This cookbook is a collaboration with Kinda Collective, and we’ve been working hard to get it out to you for the holidays.  This is a 50-page, zine-style, straightforward cookbook, featuring 29 original recipes by Chomp! chefs.  We’ve included 6 different themes from some of our favourite Chomp! dinners, with a few recipes you might remember and many new ones.  Some teaser recipes?  Pictured above: Tofu Quiche with Broccoli, Quinoa Tabbouleh, Manzana Y Horchata Cupcakes, Szechuan Green Beans, Beet and Potato Latkes, and Fancy Green Bean Casserole.

We’ll be releasing this cookbook at our next Chomp: L’Chaim! this Wednesday, December 7th.  The best part?  It’s only $5!  This is a limited edition first press, with a planned larger full-color version coming out next spring, so make sure you get your hands on this one!

I stumbled upon this video via my friends facebook page, I loved it and wanted to share it with all of you. Now lets go make some nut milk! (I’m going to go with cashews.. mmmm!)

My New Roots – How to Make Nut Milk from My New Roots on Vimeo.

So, if you were at our Chomp! Thanksliving feast, you may have seen that we had a bunch of recipes available to you of the things we created.  In case you didn’t grab one (or lost yours, like something I would do), I’m reposting mine here!  I’ve also recreated this recipe twice since Chomp! in wonderful ways, so feel free to take this recipe to the next level! 

My recreation of the recipe was Friday night when I was doing some volunteer baking for a great little place called The Comfort Cafe.  This awesome place is a not for profit gourmet restaurant located on 3945 Tennyson Street in Denver.  They always have some great vegan options, and I’ve started baking there to give them more vegan dessert options.  I didn’t have any Earth Balance to make a buttercream frosting, so I had to work without.  Instead, I sugar roasted some chopped pecans on the stove top, then made a big batch of something like the maple caramel glaze below, thickened with lots of brown sugar.  I threw the pecans into the caramel and let it cook and bubble until it was really thick.  I then spooned this on top of the cakes as an alternative to frosting.  They turned out very delicious.  See the picture below (and forgive my poor camera phone).

The cake itself is inspired from a recipe from Isa’s Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.  Her recipe is a maple walnut cupcake.  I took this and transformed it a little to make it more like a traditional pecan pie.  This makes about 12 large cupcakes or 36-58 mini cupcakes (or one 8-in round cake!)

Maple Brown Sugar Pecan Cupcakes

Ingredients:
1/2 cup almond milk
1/2 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1 1/3 cup all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon or cloves
1/2 cup pure maple syrup
1 tablespoon molasses
1/3 cup canola oil
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup sugar-roasted pecans, finely chopped or put through food processor

Method:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare cupcake pan with liners.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the milk and apple cider vinegar, allowing to curdle.
in a large bowl, sift together dry ingredients (flour, BP, BS, salt, spices)
Add maple syrup, canola oil, brown sugar, and vanilla to the milk mixture. Mix well.
Form a well in the dry ingredients and pour the wet ingredients into it.  Mix well.
Fold in sugar-roasted pecans.
Fill cupcake liners 2/3 full.
Bake in preheated oven 20 – 22 minutes for large cupcakes.  (10 – 15 for mini cupcakes.)
Allow to cool completely before topping with maple caramel glaze and vanilla buttercream frosting (recipes follow).

Maple Caramel Glaze
 
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons Earth Balance vegan butter
1 1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup milk
1 – 2 tablespoons cornstarch or arrowroot powder

Method:
Prepare a cookie sheet (with edges!) by lining it with wax paper.
Melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat.
Add sugar and syrup and mix until dissolved.
Add milk and bring to a boil for about 30 seconds, then reduce heat.
Sift in cornstarch and simmer 2-3 minutes.
Pour mixture onto prepared cookie sheet, letting it spread. 
Refrigerate until hardened.
Cut out small pieces with a blunt knife and place on top of cupcakes.

Basic Vanilla Buttercream
Ingredients:
1 cup Earth Balance vegan butter
3 1/2 – 5 cups powdered sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 cup almond milk

Method:
Cream the butter with a handmixer. 
Add sugar and beat about 3 minutes.
Add vanilla and milk, and beat another 5 minutes until fluffy.

Because we have potlucks like this:

Email info@plantsanimals.org for volunteer opportunities.

Oh man, I’ve been way into soup lately.  It’s the perfect time of year for it too.  One of my favourite things about making soup is that you can easily make a huge batch in the crockpot, share it with friends, and still have leftovers to throw in your freezer to save for a cold winter night.  I’ve got about six different kinds in my freezer already… but my newest one is a delicious concoction made with maple-roasted sweet potatoes, pumpkin puree, and a hint of spice–perfect for the season we just started! I brought it into work for my coworkers and even one who said she hated pumpkin loved it!  You can really play with the flavors a lot here: make it sweet, make it spicy, or whatever you like.  Here’s a basic recipe of what I did, but feel free to change it up! 

Roasted Sweet Potato and Pumpkin Soup Read the rest of this entry →

Last night, we had a little vegan potluck at my house, and it was fabulous and delicious.  It’s amazing what people can pull out of nowhere (even some of my friends that aren’t even vegan!).  The centerpiece of our meal was something that we’ve been talking about for a while, and one of my favourite recipes, Baked Potato Soup.  This is a recipe that a friend and I made up simply to make good use of leftover tempeh bacon crumbles from breakfast!  While it did serve its purpose, it did much more than that, by being simply delicious.  We paired it with homemade bread bowls, a green salad, and some chips and homemade hummus (with awesome rum-infused cakes for dessert).  By the end, we were all laying down rubbing our full bellies in a fit of food coma.  Isn’t that the best? 

Anyway, if you don’t know me by now, I don’t like to measure.  So this recipe is more like guidelines.  Play around with it ’til you make it delicious.  That’s all there is to it!

Baked Potato Soup Read the rest of this entry →