Vegan Peanut Butter and Jelly Bars

I did it! I veganized one of my favorite Ina Garten recipes. . . SO exciting (and yummers!!) Just one note, I've only made it once so I'm still a little unsure as to the exact amount of milk I used. I would start with 1/4 cup and then probably add up to an additional 1/4 cup, so have 1/2 cup ready to go just in case.

-18 oz peanut butter (I used 365 brand creamy organic. . . it was one of them that you don't need to stir that has both salt and sugar in it. In the original recipe, Ina recommends Skippy or some other commercial brand because it generally works/mixes better than the "all natural stir it yourself" kind)
-1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
-1/2 cup canola or vegetable oil, whatever you have
-1 cup brown sugar
-1/2 cup white sugar
-2 tsp vanilla
-2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
-1 tsp baking powder
-1 tsp salt (kosher or whatever you prefer)
-1/4-1/2 cup of your favorite non-dairy unsweetened milk (I used original rice)

-10 oz raspberry fruit spread (or any that's not clumpy)
-peanuts (raw or roasted, salted or non, whatever your preference) to sprinkle on top

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9X13 pan.

In a large bowl, mix together the peanut butter, applesauce, oil, sugars, and vanilla until smooth. Add the flour, baking powder, salt, and 1/4 cup milk. You might need to get your hands in there if it gets too difficult to use a spoon/fork. The consistency should be sort of like cookie dough. If it sticks to your hands too much it's going to stick to the roof of your mouth, so adjust accordingly! (I'll try to remember to update this recipe when I make it again with more precise measurements).

Press about 2/3 of the dough as evenly as you can into the pan -- no need to go too crazy though. Spread the whole 10oz jar of jam evenly over the top. Spread the rest of the dough on top of the jam (and by "spread" I really mean take small clumps of it, flatten them a bit, and place them pretty close to each other, covering as much as the jam as you can -- don't worry it will all come together in the oven). Sprinkle the peanuts on top and try to press them into the dough a bit with your hands or a spatula.

Bake for about 40 minutes, I think. . . until slightly brown on top. This isn't a bar that will be hard and crispy when it's ready. It stays pretty soft and fluffy, so more like a blondie or lemon bar than, say, granola. It's amazing when warm from the oven but WILL break apart pretty easily so you should probably wait until they're kinda cooled to cut them. And then enjoy! And remember, you're eating peanut butter, so it's not all that bad for you ;)

Week 3 (Jenni): Veggie Burgers and Sweet Potato Fries

This week's new recipe comes from a book my mom bought for me as a house warming present. Well, and part came from Sandra Lee.

I used my roommates grater for the carrots and zucchini, it was super easy and lots of fun. I'm realizing how much easier a food processor would make things. The recipe indicates that the food processor would have done the job in ~25 seconds. It took me nearly 25 minutes to get everything through my make-shift processor. When I was done though, it looked so yummy. My mixture was a little sticky, I feared stacking the patties on the plate, so I wrapped them each individually. I'm likely going to freeze most of them, to eat later! I cooked up a burger, and topped it with some blue cheese, it was amazing! The sweet potato fries were quick and easy, and very tasty. I used my favorite season-all seasoning to flavor them, and just let them bake for about 30 minutes.

All in all, a totally delicious Sunday evening meal.

Veggie Burgers
4 Tbsp evoo
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
2 large carrots, grated
2 medium zucchini, grated
1 16-ounce can of garbanzo beans, drained
1 Tbsp crunchy natural peanut butter
1 1/2 cups whole-wheat bread crumbs
1 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley
1 tsp curry powder*
1 tsp mixed herbs*
1 egg, beaten


Heat 2 Tbsp of oil in a large skillet. Add the onion, garlic, carrot, and zucchini, and saute about 5 minutes, until softened. Take off heat, and set aside.

Place garbanzo beans, peanut butter, breadcrumbs, parsley, curry powder, mixed herbs, and egg in a food processor.*** Process for about 20 seconds, or until garbanzo beans are broken up and all ingredients combined. Add the onion mixture and process for another 5 seconds - do not overprocess.

Form 8 patties, and place them in the fridge for 30 minutes. To cook, heat 2 Tbsp of evoo in a skillet, and cook about 4 minutes on each side.


*I did not have curry powder, I used some mixture of creole seasoning instead.
**I did not have mixed herbs, persay, so I used a dash each of oregano, dill weed, rosemary, thyme
***I do not have a food processor, so I cycled everything through my immersion blender/chopped apparatus. It was tedious and long. A food processor would have been easier.

Halloween Cookies!

Well these turned out MUCH better than the soup I made earlier in the week! There's been a couple of Fridays now at work where I've brought in baked goods. I think both times it was brownies. . . anyway, earlier this week, one of my students said to me, "So Melanie, I was thinking, since Halloween is on Saturday you should maybe make some kind of Halloween treat for us on Friday!" Because I really like this student, I said, Yeah, okay, why not. While you can go all kinds of crazy with Halloween baking (see Jenni's future post that I'm already jealous of!) I decided that for a weekday thing, for just my students, I would go for something easy that makes a lot: COOKIES!

My initial thought was chocolate cookies with orange and brown M&Ms. I didn't see any orange and brown M&Ms at the grocery store though. What I DID see however was Reese's Pieces, and since those are already Halloween colors, I bought them. After all, chocolate and peanut butter together is NEVER a bad idea.

I found this decadent recipe online for Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies and substituted 1 1/2 cups Reese's pieces for the 2 cups of chocolate chips, and I didn't use any of the optional walnuts. The only slight snafu was that the dough was really thick. I made it in my stand mixer and decided when it came time to add the candy at the end that I would just toss them in there as well. Luckily I only started with one cup. I added them in, put the mixer on the lowest setting, "stir," and they got crushed! Of course this wouldn't effect the flavor but I wanted to see the orange and yellow in the dark cookie. So I mixed the remaining half cup by hand. Also, I ran out of Hershey's cocoa powder but luckily had Ghirardelli cocoa on hand as well. The Ghirardelli is Dutch Processed unsweetened cocoa, which is darker and richer than the regular kind (I think I wanted it for a marble cake and/or chocolate ice cream at some point and that's why I had it). I can't say I wouldn't use the Ghirardelli next time as well! Boy is it good.

To say that these cookies are delicious would be an understatement. And having them warm out of the oven? CHOCOLATE AND PEANUT BUTTER HEAVEN!!! :)

The Incredible Hulk

I know all of us have a lot of cookbooks. When I moved last month, I had to weed out some of them because they just weren't all necessary. I kept one book around that I had never used, but always wanted to. It's called Super Smoothies. All of the smoothies sound delicious, but I guess I just don't usually think to use a recipe when making a smoothie because it seems kind of silly. I was flipping through this book over the weekend though, in my seemingly endless search for a healthy, filling, quick breakfast, and found one that sounded interesting. It wasn't even that original or with anything I wouldn't have thought of myself, but anyway, I gave it a try. . . and it's absolutely delicious. You HAVE to try it. Seriously. Do it. And don't worry, it's not green.

The Incredible Hulk

1/2 cup silken tofu
3/4 cup low-fat milk (I use original or vanilla, enriched rice milk because that's what I have around for cereal and, well, I've never really liked milk!)
2 Tbs. peanut butter (my favorite brand is Teddie)
2 frozen bananas, sliced (I peel them and just break them in half before freezing -- my blender is pretty solid and can handle them in large-ish pieces)
1 tsp. honey

Combine the tofu and milk in a blender. Add the remaining ingredients. Blend until smooth.

Makes about 2 1/2 cups; serves 2


They also give a whole slew of nutritional information. . . here's my condensed version:
(Per serving) calories: 287; total fat: 12 g; saturated fat: 3 g; fiber: 4 g; protein: 11 g

Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie

I think that peanut butter and chocolate might be the worlds most perfect combination. I mean, seriously. Name something that works together as well as these two...

Tonight, I created this chocolate peanut butter pie, without a recipe, using only my shear will to devour something delicious. Here's the recipe that resulted:

about half a package of Nilla Wafers, crushed fine
1/4 cup of butter
1/3 cup of peanut butter
16 oz. milk chocolate
1 container of Cool Whip

Melt butter and peanut butter over medium heat. Add to finely crushed Nilla wafers and mix well. Press into bottom and sides of pie plate (I used my springform pan). Cook in 375 degree oven for 10 minutes. Remove and cool to room temp.

On top of double boiler melt milk chocolate. Add to thawed Cool Whip and combine well (I didn't let the cool whip thaw completely, and when I added the hot chocolate it all went awry, so then I threw the mixture back into the top of the double boiler and melted it all together!) Spread chocolate into crust and chill, uncovered, at least one hour. (Once chilled you can cover it, but if it's warm when you put it in the fridge don't cover it or it'll rain all over your pie).

All I can say is....YUM-O!

I want more breakfast!

So I was watching the Food Network yesterday (what else is new) and in an attempt to find a healthy, grab-n-go breakfast option for Scott, I turned to Ellie Krieger. She had a whole breakfast show on yesterday, so it was both entertaining and educational. I watched her make these Walnut and Dried Cherry Bars and thought, That looks pretty darn good! I knew though in my own breakfast bars that I had envisioned making that they had to include peanut butter. Mmm, peanut butter. . . I also prefer pecans over walnuts for most recipes, and can't STAND cherry anything. So, here's Ellie's recipe below, with my own changes in italics:

Walnut and Dried Cherry Bars

Ingredients

• 1 cup quick-cooking oats
• 3/4 cup whole-wheat pastry flour or regular whole-wheat flour
• 1/4 cup toasted wheat germ -- 1/4 cup toasted oat bran, because that's what I had!
  
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup honey -- 1/4 cup honey and a little less than 1/4 cup agave nectar, because I ran out of honey. . .
• 1/2 cup natural peanut butter (mine is 365 brand with just peanuts and salt)
  
• 1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 1 egg, beaten to mix
• 1 egg white
• 3/4 cup chopped dried tart cherries -- 3/4 cup raisins
  
• 1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts -- 1/2 cup finely chopped pecans
  
• Cooking spray
• 1/4 cup "fruit only" apricot preserves

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a medium bowl, whisk together the oats, flour, wheat germ/oat bran, cinnamon and salt.

In another bowl, whisk together the honey, peanut butter, applesauce, oil, egg and egg white until well combined. Stir in the oatmeal mixture until well combined. Add the dried cherries/raisins and walnuts/pecans.

Coat an 8-inch square baking pan (I used a 9" because I increased the amount of batter with the peanut butter) with cooking spray. Spread the mixture into the prepared pan and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 30 to 35 minutes. Put the preserves in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. As soon as the bars come out of the oven, brush with the preserves. Cool completely and cut into 12 bars, about 4 by1 1/2 inches each.

Per Serving

Calories 230; Total Fat 9 g; (Sat Fat 1 g, Mono Fat 3 g, Poly Fat 4 g) ; Protein 4 g; Carb 34 g; Fiber 2 g; Cholesterol 20 mg; Sodium 60 mg

Excellent source of: Manganese

Good source of: Thiamin

Of course I'm not sure the above nutritional information is correct anymore, but let me tell you, these bars are freakin' DELICIOUS! I'm totally addicted to them. So whether it's for breakfast, a snack, or even dessert, I highly recommend making them. The only question is what to call them since they're clearly not Walnut and Dried Cherry Bars anymore. . . Peacan Peanut Butter Goodness? Oh My God I Can't Stop Eating Them Bars? Anyway, just make them. How can you not?!