Vegan Peanut Butter Bars

So this recipe is adapted from a recipe in a cookbook. I have been wanting to try this for ages and finally got around to it. A lot of the measurements that they had originally didn't make sense in making it turn out how it should, thankfully I'm never one to follow recipes to a T, I prefer to wing it. Winging it turned out to work very well in my favor. So here is the original recipe with my adaptions included and some pictures of each step.



Serves 8  157 calories per serving


1/2 cup low calorie thin chocolate wafers, ground (I subbed it for some plain shredded wheat cereal that I ground)
1/2 cup old fashioned oats
1/3 cup confectioners sugar ( I used regular sugar)
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter melted and cooled (I used about 4 1/2 to make it stick more)
1/4 cup creamy reduced fat peanut butter (used regular creamy peanut butter)
1 1/2 reduced fat cream cheese, room temperature (I used Tofutti cream cheese )
2 tablespoons pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoons semi sweet chocolate chips, melted (Vegan)
optional: cinnamon (to taste)


1. Line a 9 inch loaf pan with parchment paper leaving an overhang on the sides to lift out easier later.

No loaf pan for me, I felt it would be easier to use something bigger and flatter.

2. Combine the ground wafers, oats, sugar and 1/4 tsp in a bowl. Stir in the butter until everything is evenly moistened. Stir in 1 tbsp of peanut butter ( I used 3 tbsp because it wasn't all clumping together) until mixture forms large clumps.Transfer mixture to lined loaf pan and press into an even layer ( I sprinkled a little cinnamon on top not measuring it). Refrigerate until firm, about 10 minutes or so.

Before patting it into the pan

It makes quite a lot of it

3.Meanwhile beat cream cheese with a mixer until smooth and fluffy, about 2 minutes (I just used a spoon). Add vanilla, 1/4 tsp salt and and remaining 3 tbsp of peanut butter ( Since I only used about 3-4 tbsp of cream cheese I used around 2-3 tbsp of peanut butter) I also sprinkled some cinnamon in to make it a little sweeter. Mix until pale and nearly doubled in volume. Transfer to the loaf pan and spread in an even layer over the cookie crust. Freeze until firm, about 10 minutes or so.

Nice and creamy, make sure its room temperature before spreading so its easier to work with

Not so even spread but I was using a spoon 

4. Taking some chocolate chips (about 1/3 cup) I melted it for 20 seconds in the microwave adding a tiny bit of water to thin it out. Then I spread an even layer over the chilled peanut butter later. Refrigerate until firm, about 10-15 minutes. Then cut in 8 squares when you are ready to serve.

At first I only melted the chocolate and spread which is why the bottom half is darker and lumpier. The top half on the other hand was thinned out with water and made it much easier to work with.

Cut it up as evenly as I could

I wish I would have gotten a better picture

Next time I will be more neater about making these but I was in a rush and multi-tasking making some dinner. These were gone hours after being made, even my sister who hates peanut butter couldn't help herself from having two. They were just so good. She likened them to Reese's peanut butter cups in taste. The flavors are just so good and work well, I really think the cinnamon helped bring out the flavor better. I'm going to wait a couple of weeks before making these again because I won't be able to stop eating them. 


Give these a try and enjoy!

Vegetarian Eggrolls

I've always wanted to make eggrolls at home and after a trip to the supermarket I picked up a pack of eggroll wrappers. Upon inspection when I got home I realized that they contained egg so it wasn't vegan, but I still made  them for my family. I was told they came out tasty. I wasn't feeling very adventurous about the filling so I filled it with refried beans, carrots, cabbage, ground "beef" and a few of them had cheese. I seasoned them with soe nutritional yeast, flax, salt pepper, paprika, garlic and a little basil. Then I fried them up in a pan of oil and that was it. 

The egg rolls that I bought were from Nasoya. Next time I'm going to make some vegan ones from scratch so that I can enjoy them!

Hearty Vegan Chili

I've never been particularly fond of chili and had never made it before but for some reason felt like making it. Originally it was supposed to be a 3 bean chili but it turned out to be 2. Seriously this chili came out so delicious I can't help but keep eating it repeatedly, as soon as this batch is done I'm making another one. When I made it I honestly didn't bother to measure because I like to just add how much I feel but I did try to make a recipe with a guideline at least. So this chili was like a 2 step process but still not that difficult at all. 

Step one and Ingredients: Bag of red kidney beans or any beans of your liking 

Soak your beans in a bowl filled water overnight. Next day boil the beans in a pot of water until tender. I only used half a bag of beans and that was plenty, then I froze the other half. Now since I was using one canned bean that was already cooked (black beans) I only worried about cooking the other ones.

Step two and Ingredients: Carrots, Potatoes, Celery, Corn, Tomato/es

Use as many potatoes and carrots you'd like (I used more carrots than potatoes).I put my potatoes and carrots to boil in a pot till tender and cut them up into bite size pieces (later on I cut them smaller for the chili).  Boiling the beans, potatoes and carrots before will just cut down on the amount of time that you have to leave the chili cooking. 

When you have those things boiling you are going to cut up your celery, tomatoes and corn (I used canned corn).

Step three and Ingredients: Beans, adobo seasoning, chili powder, garlic, onion, tomato sauce, paprika, tumeric, sazon, sofrito, lemon juice, oil

Taking a big pot because this makes a lot I started to add the seasonings. I coated the bottom of the pan with a thin layer of oil (your choice which one) and turned the stove on low. 

Then I added in about 1 table spoon of chili powder, 1/2 packet of sazon seasoning, 1 tablespoon of tumeric, 1 tablespoon of paprika, 1/2 of an onion (cut it up as small as you like or leave it big like I did)3 cans of tomato sauce, 3 tablespoons of lemon juice, 1 1/2 tablespoons of garlic (We grind our whole garlic cloves), Your cooked beans and about 3-4 tablespoons of sofrito.

When I precook beans I always store them with the water that they were boiled with so I only had to use a little water if needed but this liquid was enough. 

Now to make sofrito which is a seasoning you will need these ingredients:

 1/2 red bell pepper roughly chopped

 1/2 green bell pepper roughly chopped

 1/2-3/4 cup fresh cilantro (depends on your taste) 

1/2-3/4 cup recao (culantro)  

2-3 garlic cloves

 1/2 onion roughly chopped

We make big batches so you can double the recipe or halve it. Store it in the fridge or freeze it to keep for a couple of months. You can make sofrito with using both peppers or rather use one or the other. Red pepper cilantro is nice to cook with beans.

Step 4 and Ingredients: Corn, Potatoes, Carrots, Tofu

Throw in the precooked and cut potatoes and carrots into the pot. Taking some extra firm silken tofu I crumbled it into the mixture as well ( you can decide how much you want to put in). Throw in the corn you either cut up or got from the can. Also I threw in a large tomato to thicken the chili up a bit and give it a stronger flavor.

Stir everything in and cover the pot. Make sure to keep it on low heat so that it simmers slowly. Also make sure to check on it as it thickens because you don't want it to burn. So once you see that it starts getting a little thicker check on it more often than if it was watery still. 

Let that cook for about 1 hour and 30 minutes (or until its to the consistency that you want), then turn the heat off. The sauce should taste like seasoned beans, I could definitely pick up the sofrito flavors. If you made a big batch you could save some of it and freeze it and you already have beans cooked to serve with rice if you please. 

Step 5

So taking some cheddar cheese (Daiya) depending on how much you make pour however much cheese you want in it but not too much because we don't want it cheesy. I mixed in the cheese only after serving individual bowls and for each one I put in about less than 1 tablespoon into them. Also I sprinkled in some nutritional yeast about 1-2 tablespoons and added about 3-4 tablespoons of flaxseed.

Next I took some sour cream (Tofutti) and again mixed it in individually about 1 teaspoon per bowl. If you are mixing it into the pot you wont need more than about 1- 1 1/2 tablespoons. After adding sour cream the chili instantly thickens and all the flavors come out.

I sliced up some avocado and placed it atop my chili. 

The rich flavors in this dish is astounding, you can taste almost everything and it works wonderfully. This is definitely a keeper in my book and I am going to keep making it through the winter. Everyone loved it all carnivores and all. This is such a hearty meal in itself and so fulfilling! 

 Hope you enjoy it!

Old Fashioned Vegan Pumpkin Pie

I wanted to put up this recipe despite thanksgiving passing, because it was my first vegan thanksgiving. I had to find a way to alter the recipes I loved and always used to fit my new lifestyle and I'm actually really happy with my success. More on the other recipes soon!
This is the pumpkin pie recipe that I have used countless times and will always use, for me there is no other pumpkin pie recipe to try. Here are the original ingredients and measurements with its adjusted ones.


For a 9 inch pie:


2 Eggs  (You can use an egg substitute but since I didn't have I used 2 tblsp of Coconut cream)
1 canned pumpkin
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt 
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/4 cloves 
1 2/3 cup evaporated milk or cream   (substitute with Non-dairy milk like soy,almond or rice)


Makes: 2 9 inch pans   Bake time: 45-50 mins or until knife comes out clean


I have made this recipe without cloves also and the taste is still very good. I used coconut cream because it's great at adhering things together when baking. So based on the amount of eggs I substitute it for tablespoons of coconut cream. I made my own crust with it that was very simple but store bought one's are just as good.

Vegan BLT Lunch

I have been a bit MIA this past week and it's due in part to feeling under the weather. The other part is that for some reason or other everything I cooked last week ended in a massive fail. Nothing was coming out right so this week I've been hesitant to try anything extravagant. I started it off with a sandwich that I found myself craving for breakfast.
I loved regular Blt sandwiches and for whatever reason they came to mind and I wanted to give it a try. It's a simple easy sandwich and I had it again yesterday for lunch because it was so good. All you need is; bread, "bacon", lettuce, tomato, "mayo" and french fries.


I used two strips of vegan bacon and in a pan with a small amount of oil cooked it until it was crispy, I also added a bit of salt in the oil to give it that salty bacon taste.
Then using some bread I lightly toasted it and spread a thin film of vegan mayonnaise on one side, adding the bacon atop it.
I cut up some lettuce and slices of tomato and seasoned them with salt, pepper, olive oil and lemon. I put the lettuce and tomato on the other side of the bread and closed to eat.
I also cooked some fries as a side and  put some ketchup and barbecue on the side.

Apple Cinnamon Oat Muffins

Late last night I got into the mood of baking but tried to figure out what to make. I really wanted to try my hand at making chocolate chip cookies but having never made cookies from scratch I told myself to leave it for another day. Instead I decided on muffins since I already made cupcakes and a sponge cake. The idea of blueberry muffins and something with oats appealed to me so I got started. 

Apple Cinnamon Oat Muffins Ingredients


2 cups whole wheat flour (unbleached white is fine too)
2 cups oats
3/4 cup sugar (white or brown will do)
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce (I subbed it for a banana)
1/2 cup canola oil
1 1/2 cups soy milk
3 apples, peeled and diced into small pieces 

Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes

The only alterations I made to the ingredients were eliminating the salt (because I had no more at home) and I did 1 cup Soy milk and 1/2 cup water. Next time I will use the salt a little more cinnamon, applesauce and instead of soy milk use almond milk, I think the almond flavor would work nicely. I ended up with a lot of batter enough to make two dozen muffins. It came out slightly sweet not overpowering and although my sister enjoyed them I personally wish they had a little more cinnamon ( I love the taste of it). It was surprisingly easy and I will make them again in the future with the changes I stated.

I made my blueberry muffins first and while they came out like muffins I wasn't too happy with the end result. I had the oven set too high so the outsides slightly burned and then it hardly had any flavor. I used canned blueberries because I didn't have fresh ones (I think this affected it greatly) and I had to skip on salt because I was out of that also. They have a slight sweet taste but not really strong so those are still sitting in the fridge. 

 Sad flat little muffins :(

Vegan:Breakfast

So this morning I decided to try and make Pancakes. I don't eat pancakes often being more of an oatmeal or cream of wheat fan but occassionally I have one. I made some about two weeks ago using buckwheat flour and the consistency was about the same. Only thing was that I used water instead of milk and too much cinnamon last time, they were very sweet (although my sister disagreed). Any way the recipe's pretty simple all you need is:


1 cup of flour
3 tbsp sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp oil or butter
1 egg replacer (like bananas) or nothing at all I've skipped using it
1 cup non dairy milk (I think almond milk would be a nice choice but I have used water or soy milk)


I mixed all the dry ingredients together and then mixed in the wet ingredients until there were no lumps. 

You can add other things in it like chocolate chips, bananas or cinnamon (which I used). I let it cook on low-medium heat and then served it with some syrup. 

I accompanied my pancakes with a bottle of water and a fruit smoothie consisting of 3 apples, a handful of strawberries and some vanilla soy milk. 

Everything was quick to make which is ideal and it tasted good as well.