Yummy Protein Goo Ball Bites

I have been doing my best to get as much protein as possible lately. (Thank goodness for Brendan Brazier’s Vega Bars!) I have made many versions of this snack throughout my life, but never added protein powder before and it really was such a perfect addition! I made both vanilla and chocolate versions to enjoy :) Awesome!

These were so super fast to whip up and even faster to eat haha so make sure you make some extra for the perfect on the go snacks.

Yummy Protein Goo Ball Bites

Chocolate Version

1 scoop chocolate protein powder (as I mentioned above – I love Brendan Brazier’s products from Vega and his Shake & Go Smoothie Chocolate is amazing!!!!)
2 tablespoons Artisana coconut butter (this is the best stuff ever!)
2 teaspoons honey or agave
1 heaping teaspoon organic peanut butter (or other nut butter)
1/2 cup unsweetened dried shredded coconut
1/4 cup light coconut milk

Vanilla Version

1 scoop vanilla protein powder (my absolute favorite vanilla powder - Life Time Lifes Basics Plant Protein)
2 tablespoons Artisana coconut butter
2 teaspoons honey or agave
1 heaping teaspoon organic peanut butter (or other nut butter)
1/2 cup unsweetened dried shredded coconut
1/4 cup light coconut milk

Combine all ingredients. You might need a little more protein powder or coconut if too wet or some coconut milk if too dry. Roll into balls in your hands.

Optional add ons:

  • 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
  • Extra shredded coconut

Melt chocolate over a double boiler and dip the bites in the bowl. Then sprinkle coconut over and freeze until firm.

Vegan Peach Cobbler Pie

When we were out in Sag Harbor we went to every farmers market in the Hamptons. SO many fresh and colorful fruits and veggies :)
One of the markets we went to, The Milk Pail in Water Mill had beautiful peaches, so I couldn’t resist the 5 pound bag. Two years ago I had done the same thing (we had actually got to pick the peaches then) and made Raw Luscious Peach Cobbler. This year I figured although we LOVED that cobbler, to try a baked version. Michael’s absolute favorite dessert is cobbler so I always love to experiment with it. I looked up some different recipes and here is my interpretation. Yum!!!
Vegan Peach Cobbler Pie
makes 2 cobbler pies 8x8ish or round pie pans 
Sauce
1 cup flour
3/4 cup white sugar
2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup soymilk
4 teaspoon vanilla
Crumbles
3/4 cup vegan butter, melted
1/2 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon agave nectar
pinch of sea salt
2 1/3 cup flour
Peaches
7-9 peaches, sliced or chopped
1/2 cup agave nectar
1 tablespoon nutmeg
  1. Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.
  2. Toss the peaches with the agave and the nutmeg in baking pans and set aside.
  3. Mix all the sauce ingredients together until smooth and pour over peaches.
  4. Combine the crumbles ingredients into a crumbly dough with your hands. Sprinkle on top, completely covering the peaches and sauce.
  5. Place in the oven 35 minutes. Remove from oven and sprinkle another tablespoon of sugar onto both pies. Place back in the oven for 7 more minutes.
  6. Remove, let cool, and enjoy!

Vegan Fudge: Soy, Tree Nut, & Gluten Free

Thanks so much Averie for this recipe! OMG! This one “magically” dissappeared fast out of the fridge over the week. ;) I don’t normally make these kind of desserts to keep in the house, but it was Birthday Week so I thought we could have this special treat. SO good, So fast (to make AND to eat!!). YUM!!!!!! It’s rich, decadent, fudgy, wonderful.


Vegan Fudge–Soy, Tree Nut, & Gluten Free; and a 10 Minute Recipe
Recipe from Averie

1 Cup Vegan/Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
1 box Confectioner’s Sugar
1/2 Cup Cocoa Powder
2 Tablespoons Dairy-Free Margarine (Earth Balance)
1/2 Cup Regular Coconut Milk *DO NOT USE LIGHT Coconut Milk*
1/2 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract

  1. In a large bowl, combine the chocolate chips, sugar, and cocoa.
  2. Separately, place the margarine and coconut milk in a small saucepan, and stir together over medium heat.
  3. Cook the mixture until the margarine has melted, and bubbles just begin to break at the surface.
  4. Remove it from the stove, and immediately pour the liquid over the dry chocolate & sugar mixture.
  5. Let everything sit for a couple of minutes (and if you wait too long and it hardens up on you, feel free to nuke it for 15 seconds at a time or until melty), and then stir vigorously to melt the chocolate and incorporate the dry ingredients.
  6. Continue stirring until a completely smooth mixture forms.
  7. Mix in the vanilla, and quickly pour everything into your prepared pan, a lightly greased or cooking-sprayed 8×8 pan (or another similar size)
  8. Let cool completely before cutting into squares.

I'm surprised any of this made it into the pan :) It was so good! The ultimate spoon licking dessert!!

Ready to Chill

Vegan Dessert Bars

These are amazing! I have been making and impressing people for years with them!!! And we all know that I rarely repeat a recipe so these must be amazing hahah

Vegan Blondies / Dessert Bars
25 squares-ish

  • 1 5/8 sticks of Earth Balance, melted (Love that they make the sticks of Earth Balance!!)
  • 1 pound light brown sugar
  • 3 vegan egg replacer
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 2 3/4 cups white flour
  • 2 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup chopped nuts (I use half pecans and half walnuts)
  • 1 12 ounce bag vegan chocolate chips
  1. In a bowl, combine melted Earth Balance and brown sugar. Let cool.
  2. Pre-heat oven to 350F.
  3. Add the egg replacer and the vanilla, mix well.
  4. In another bowl, add the dry ingredients together, mix and then add to the liquid mixture. Mix everything thoroughly.
  5. Spread into a greased 13″x9″ pan.
  6. Bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool and cut into squares, and enjoy!!!

All Gone!!

Kim’s Vegan Sugar Cookies

My wonderful friend and reader, Kim, has shared some really great recipes with me in the past. I am super excited to have her Guest Post here :) These cookies look absolutely amazing!!!! I think these would be great for any holiday or event as they are so versatile!! YUM!!!!

———————————–

So I always find family holidays a bit tough because they always revolve around candy and sweet baked goods.  So every year I usually try out a new recipe of some sort to see how it comes out and to test it on my family.  My goal is to find the perfect vegan holiday recipe that not only will I enjoy, but my family will as well (and they are picky eaters).  So I found this recipe in VegNews and decided to give it a go.  Not only did it come out fantastic but my family can’t get enough of them.  My Grandmother and myself were up to our elbows in cookies for Easter, with frosting everywhere.  We spent a good amount of time trying to design the perfect cookie to be photographed, but got so tired by the end of the night that we only shot a few cookies and decided that we would just slap some frosting on the rest for the family.  They are so delicious that we didn’t think the family would mind or notice.  Hope that you enjoy this recipe as much as me and my family does.

Vegan Sugar Cookies

For the cookies:
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup vegan margarine, softened
3 teaspoons ener-g egg replacer, mixed with 1/4 cup water
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup vegan sour cream
4 1/3 cups flour
2 teaspoons lemon zest
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

For the frosting:
1/4 cup vegan margarine
3 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoons soymilk (I use almond milk)
1 teaspoon lemon zest
(for the frosting I think they messed up the amount of milk. It  makes
a crumbly consistency so i usually follow it and once it’s mixed I
slowly pour in more milk until it becomes a nice smooth frosting)

  1. To prepare cookies, preheat oven to 350. In a large bowl cream margarine and sugar until fluffy.  Add egg replacer, vanilla, and sour cream and mix well.
  2. In a separate bowl, mix flour, lemon zest, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add dry mixture to wet
  3. Mix for 1 to 2 minutes or until combined then roll dough into large ball, wrap with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 30 minutes
  4. Remove dough from fridge and roll out 1/2 inch thick on floured board.  Cut using cookie cutters.  Bake for 8 to 10 minutes until golden.  Allow to cool before frosting.
  5. For frosting mix all ingredients with mixer on medium speed until creamy and soft (will need to add more milk I have yet to calculate how much I usually add so just eye it)
  6. This makes a lot of cookies and I usually put the dough in the freezer  while each batch is in the oven so that while your waiting the dough doesn’t get too soft ( just don’t leave it too long or else you will have iced cookie dough)

And be warned these are addicting, be prepared to eat at least 5 before you even offer them to anyone else because they are that good. My grandmother ate at least 2 handfuls by Easter and she doesn’t usually eat that much sweets.

My 30th Birthday!

I LOVE Birthdays and I turned 30 last week! SO of course a fun reason to celebrate!

On Friday Night we celebrated at Friday Night Yoga Social! FNYS is an AMAZING class I teach with two unbelievable, inspiring and beautiful teachers and friends; Mimi and Angie. It was so perfect to be able to celebrate with many of our students and friends, such a special night as always! If you are ever in NYC on a Friday Night, come to our fun class!!

Saturday was more fun party time :) And of course since this was my party, there had to be yummy vegan food!

Terri’s delivered their SUPER YUMMY sandwiches. Michael and I LOVE all their Vegan sandwiches but seem to never get enough of the Vegan Bacon Cheddar Chicken Ranch sandwiches. See my review here from when they first opened. It was great to see all these non-vegans Loving these scrumptious sandwiches too, always fun of course! Sorry, I didn’t take any pictures. But go there yourself and try these sandwiches out, so good!

I also had a crudité platter from Whole Foods. Of course a crudité platter would not normally get a honorable mention but this one was special because it had a super yummy Vegan Caramelized Onion Dip. The catering guy at Whole Foods Union Square, Mark, was Super awesome and so helpful! We went around the whole store to score the best vegan dip for the platter. Perfection!

I love my sweets and since it was a birthday party, there had to be a cake and then of course some more desserts ;) I brought the deelish vegan brownie bites, chocolate chip cookies and oatmeal raisin cookies from BabyCakes. And the cake, oh the cake…. one of our faves, Chocolate Peanut Butter Bomb Cake from Vegan Treats… we bought it at Atlas since Vegan Treats is in PA, but they sell their AMAZING cakes and treats all over the city so thank goodness not hard to come up with. (pic below)

Then on another night Michael took me to Pure Food & Wine to celebrate just the two of us :) YUM!! And of course this meal had to end with the amazing Mint Sundae. (pic below)

Thanks to everyone who came out to celebrate with me and who sent Birthday Wishes!! Lots of love all around!!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Bomb Cake

Ugh Oh! This is a dangerous cake to have leftovers of! YUM!!

Mint Sundae from Pure Food & Wine

5 minute Tofu Chocolate Pudding & Whipped Cream Pie

Recently I needed a fast dessert to bring to a party. I didn’t really have time to make something, and not that there is anything wrong with buying something to bring, it just really isn’t me. So I needed to improvise :) My mom had recently sent me a 5 minute recipe for a Tofu Dream Pudding. (Thanks Mom!) I figured why not use this recipe to make a quick pie.

The pudding was incredible!!! We could have just eaten this on its own but it was super deelish as a pie filling as well.

It is easier to slice when frozen, but even more deelish when defrosted!

Tofu chocolate Pudding & Whipped Cream Pie

Pudding
Recipe adapted from food.com

  • 2 boxes of firm silken tofu (the asceptic type…One brand is Mori-Nu…not the water packed kind!)
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
  • 2 teaspoons almond extract
  • 2/3 cup cocoa powder (good quality)
  1. Simply blend tofu, cocoa, sugar, vanilla in a food processor or blender until smooth and well blended.
  2. Add the almond extract in a little at a time, and adjust to taste. (optional)

Pie

  • vegan pie shell (I chose chocolate…see picture below)
  • vegan whip cream (I used Soyatoo Soy whipped cream and was not so impressed, buy Hip Whip instead)
  • chocolate bar
  1. Pour pudding into pie shell
  2. Decorate with whipped topping and then grate chocolate over it.
  3. Either serve immediately or freeze. (freezing made it perfect for travel! But it tastes best defrosted)

Pie Shell

Just the pudding in the pieshell

The pudding was amazing just on its own!

Party Time! Fun Vegan Snack/Apps Ideas

I am super excited about the Jets game this weekend!!! I wanted to share some past ideas for fun snack ideas to serve for the big game (or really any party :) ) I know that sometimes we can end up at a party without any good vegan grub (potato chips don’t count!) so I like to always be prepared and bring something fun with me :)

Have a great weekend! Go J-E-T-S!!

Cheesy Baked Penne with Cauliflower and Crème Fraîche VEGAN Version! SO GOOD!

Sweet Potato Fries with Raspberry Dipping Sauce

Beet Ravioli with Herb Cheese Filling

Garbanzo Guacamole

Meltaway Peppermint Patties

Vegan 7 Layer Dip

Vegan Eggplant Pecan Pesto Dip

Herbin’ Ranch Dip

Babaganush

Chocolate-Covered Katie’s Banana Butter

Chocolate Banana Oatmeal Cookies

Chopped “Liver” Spread

Raw Fudge Brownies with frosting

The fudge brownies are delicious! The frosting on top really added to how yummy they were. It gave the brownies 2 different textures, awesome! I love how amazing raw desserts can be. Make a batch of these and keep them in the fridge. All you need is little slices, just a taste is enough. These will stay great for over a week.

Raw Fudge Brownies
adapted from Raw Lou Lou

1 Tablespoon melted cacao butter
2 Tablespoons cacao nibs
2 Tablespoons cacao powder
1/2 teaspoon hemp protein powder
1 Tablespoon carob powder
1 cup soaked macadamia nuts
2 Tablespoons ground flax seeds
1 handful goji berries
2 Tablespoons almond nut butter
1 Tablespoon coconut oil
1  1/2 Tablespoons agave
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Blend all of the above in a Vitamix or a food processor. Press into a loaf baking  pan and set in fridge.
Chocolate Frosting
1 avocado
1 Tablespoon agave
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 Tablespoon cacao powder
Blend all of the above together and spread on top of the fudge brownie mix and leave to set in the fridge. Enjoy!

Before Frosting

with the yummy frosting!

Chocolate Banana Oatmeal Cookies

One of my fabulous readers, Kim sent me this deelish cookie recipe! They came out so great! Plus these were super simple and fast to make. This is a recipe you can whip up any time in no time :)

I ended up quadrupling the recipe to bring to Prema & Alex’s engagement party. I never even mentioned they were vegan and all the boys couldn’t get at them fast enough. Always so nice to see that! Some people hear that something is vegan and are immediately turned off. Have them taste them first and then let them know just how amazing vegan food can be! YUM!

Thanks Kim!!!


Chocolate Banana Oatmeal Cookies
Prep: 10 min
Cook time:  25 min
Makes 16 cookies
Recipe from Susan Sarandon (love her!!)

1 cup oat flour (I use half white flour and half whole wheat flour)
¾ cup old fashioned rolled oats
½ teaspoon baking powder
1/3 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup raw sugar
1/3 cup canola oil
1/3 cup plain soy milk
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
½ banana, cut into small pieces (I mash them, it makes the cookies more moist)
¼ cup walnuts (optional), chopped
1/3 semisweet chocolate chips (dark chocolate tastes good as well)

Preheat oven to 350°. Combine first 5 ingredients (up until sugar) in a bowl.   Whisk together oil, soy milk, and vanilla in a separate bowl.  Add wet mixture to dry ingredients; stir to combine.  Fold in banana, walnuts, and chocolate chips.

Line baking sheet with parchment paper or grease the pan.  Scoop dough onto pan.  Bake 20-25 minutes or until golden brown,  turning baking sheet halfway through.  Let cool and enjoy.

For a healthier cookie:
Honey, or agave syrup can be used to replace sugar.  Dried fruits or nuts can be used in place of chocolate chips as well.

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