Peanut Butter Chocolate Pillows

There are many words to describe this cookie (or whatever it is) & I choose divine!

I was in a mood to bake up a storm last weekend & luckily I had a few excuses - two friends with birthdays & a craving for something chocolate. In my opinion - there isn't much that is better than peanut butter and chocolate together & that is exactly what I found.
I have been reading oh-so-many vegan blogs and I have a list longer than my arm of recipes that I am dying to try. This recipe I first found on (never home)maker's blog. You can find her blog and recipe here:
http://www.neverhomemaker.com/2010/01/ppks-peanut-butter-chocolate-pillows.html
She takes some wonderful photos & does a very good job of documenting everything.
The recipe for these little goodies actually belongs to the Post Punk Kitchen, some folks who also do a great job of whipping up some great recipes. You can find their blog & recipe here:
http://www.theppk.com/blog/2009/03/30/peanut-butter-pillows/

So let me tell you about making these cookies. They aren't fast so you will need patience and a not-so-grumbly tummy. Below I will post the recipe taken from the PPK's blog originally.

First step is to get all of your ingredients together like a good little baker:

Peanut Butter Chocolate Pillows
Yeild: 24 cookies (2 dozen)

For the chocolate cookie part:
-1/2 cup canola oil

-1 cup raw sugar (I used organic pure cane sugar)
-1/4 cup pure maple syrup (this is not the same as pancake syrup)
-3 tablespoons non-dairy milk (I used soy because I am trying to get rid of it)
-1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (I used artificial vanilla because that’s what I had on hand)
-1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (I used unbleached organic)
-1/3 cup unsweetened dutch processed cocoa powder (could not find dutched coaco so I used          Hershey’s Special Dark which is a blend of dutched and regular)
-2 tablespoons dark unsweetened cocoa (just used more or the above)
-1/2 teaspoon baking soda
-1/4 teaspoon salt

For the Filling:

-3/4 cup natural salted peanut butter, crunchy or creamy style (used Woodstock Farms Organic Easy Spread   smooth/salted)
-2/3 cup confectioner’s sugar
-1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
-2 to 3 tablespoons soy creamer or non-dairy milk (used soy milk)

To prepare:

1.  In a small/medium bowl combine the flour, cocoa powder, dark cocoa, baking soda and salt. You can sift this together, but I just used a whisk and it was great, easy, & quick.
2. In the bowl of an electric stand mixer (though I am sure that you could use a hand mixer) combine oil, sugar, maple syrup, non-dairy milk, and vanilla and mix until smooth. Add the dry mix to the wet ingredients. Mix to form a moist dough. Set this aside.
3. To make the filling: In another medium mixing bowl beat together peanut butter, confectioner’s sugar, 2 tablespoons of soy creamer and vanilla extract to form a moist but firm dough. (I used a hand mixer for this step) If peanut butter dough is too dry (as different natural peanut butters have different moisture content), stir in remaining tablespoon of non-dairy milk. If dough is too wet knead in a little extra powdered sugar. **Helpful hint from me – as natural peanut butter requires refrigeration, I found it easiest to work with a new jar of PB so that it was soft and easy to mix. This particular PB used did not require any additional milk or powdered sugar.**
4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper. (I did not line my trays with parchment paper. I do, however have nice baking sheets – I would not recommend using an old baking sheet that has black markings all over.)
5. Shape the cookies: Create the centers of the cookies by rolling the peanut butter dough into 24 balls. Because it is hard to tell just how large to make these, it may take some trial and error. I believe that my PB centers were about as big around as a quarter. Set these aside.
6. Scoop a generous tablespoon (be careful of how generous you are with your tablespoons –used a tablespoon measure to scoop out the chocolate dough and let it overflow a litte and ended up one chocolate ball short)of chocolate dough, flatten into a disc and place a peanut butter ball in the center.
7. Fold the sides of chocolate dough up and around the peanut butter center and roll the chocolate ball into a smooth ball between your palms. Place on a baking tray and repeat with remaining dough & PB.
8. Place dough balls on lined (or not) baking sheets about 2 inches apart and bake for 10 minutes. **Because I did not want to rotate my trays in the oven as I was unsure how that would affect the baking of these particular cookies –I made one tray of 12, baked them and put together the remaining 12 as the first batch baked. The timing was perfect.** Remove sheet from oven and let cookies sit on the tray for 5 minutes before moving to a wire rack to complete cooling. Store cookies in airtight container.

They are so wonderful - they are absolutely worth the time. As I did some more baking this weekend, I will post those later.

Posting Pause

I haven't been feeling well lately but will be sure to get back on soon to post more information.

Where to eat in Chatt

On dining out in Chattanooga.
Took the guest to Hiroshi's  - which serves some fabulous sushi as well as other Japanese fare. Because the guest does not enjoy sushi  she had fish.
Unfortunately, Hiroshi's only prepares raw food well. The fish was apparently overdone and the veggies it was served with were insanely salty. The same results were found with another guest's steak. Well, you win some & you loose some. My veggie sushi was great and I enjoyed my meal. The service was sub-par. There were only two girls waiting on the entire restaurant & poor dears must have been running around like crazy.

For lunch today I went with the guest and a few others to Sluggo's Vegetarian Cafe. I have finally gotten around to going and have nothing but greatness to report.
As the 3 I was with are omnivores, most were timid about trying anything unfamiliar to them.
Here is what was had:
1 - cup of chili (reported good but quite spicy) and small garden salad
2 - large garden salad (average)
3 - portobello mushroom burger (reported good)
4 - For myself, I had the black bean burrito. I love Mexican fare. The burrito was quite good but was seasoned with cumin which was unexpected but delicious. The burrito was gigantic! It comes with a vegan sour cream but as I don't care for sour cream, I left it off. It is topped with 'cheese' which tasted alright. I asked what type it was, as I did not have success with the rice cheese last weekend. I was told that it is made in-house and is made of nutritional yeast flakes. This is a product which I have yet to try but I read about it in many recipes. Apparently it has lots of vitamin B. The cheese was good but not very "cheesy" tasting. If I were to compare it to any "regular"cheese - it is most like a squeeze nacho cheese - which I am not a fan of.
The chips and salsa served with the burrito were very nice. The chips were not greasy at all and had a great crunch.
I will definitely be making another trip back!

Dining Out Dilemma

During my time as a vegan - just over two weeks - I have not run across any problems regarding meals that cannot be solved with a quick trip to the grocery store or a great recipe. Vegans can eat meals that are just as fabulous as those that contain animal products.
The issue now is dining out.

Chattanooga, TN - where I live - has one vegan restaurant and one vegetarian restaurant. I have dined at the vegan restaurant prior to being a vegan & even before I was vegetarian and did not enjoy my experience. Most likely, I just need to give it another try.
The vegetarian restaurant in town I have not tried yet but am anxious to do so as most of their menu items fit into 'vegan' category.

So what is the problem? When friends want to dine out, they do not want to go to the same restaurants again & again. Heck, I don't want to go to the same restaurants again and again. I just learned that I will no longer be able to eat at my favorite Italian restaurant in town. Because they make fresh pasta, they use eggs & so it's out. Another favorite restaurant of mine offers many vegetarian options but most of those include sandwiches (bread made with eggs) or cheese.

What's in? Mexican. I am so glad that this is generally one of my top choices as I feel that I will be eating quite a lot of it. Japanese  - veggie sushi rolls - are also an option that I might be trying more and more of.

With a guest coming into town for a few days I will most certainly want to take them out to eat - and because she doesn't care for Mexican or sushi - the question now is "where?"

Getting Back to the New Normal

I am doing some crazy things to my body & my brain right now. The on again, off again smoothie cleanse has created havoc for me. Both stomach and head can't figure out what's going to come next and after doing the cleanse for most of 2 weeks, regular food is rough.

What I do not recommend - a drastic change in diet of any type. Please, learn from my mistakes.

Another problem I am having is one that I have been fighting my entire life - overindulgence. I just don't seem to know when to say 'when'. What I am going to need to find is balance & soon.

Barely slept last night due to an aching stomach. Didn't feel like I needed to be in the bathroom or getting sick, but just an awful ache. Felt that way most of the morning & had a pounding headache as well. I am going to attribute this to sugar from the cookies (the yucky ones) which I tasted more times than necessary to tell that they simply weren't good.

Felt so crummy that I didn't even make it to the gym & I am now regretting this decision, but my tennis shoes are locked up at the office. Will get things together tomorrow. I am making a promise to myself.

Vegan versions of "regular foods"

Saturday was spent with a stomach ache for the majority of the day. This is what happens when you get excited about eating solid foods again and go overboard. Mexican certainly wasn't the best choice. 
Rested for most of the morning & afternoon and mended things with lentil soup. Lentils, yum, are something which had never been a part of my diet until I went vegetarian this fall. Many of the soups I've made over the past few months call for them and I have really enjoyed them. Beans are really making a larger appearance in my diet in general, through soups mostly.

I sat down to look through recipes for the week & I am having trouble picking out vegan recipes other than soups. I don't own any vegan cookbooks (except for the recipes included in some of the books I have bought) and I am finding that this will need to be something that I add to my wish list soon.

I was really looking forward to making some yummy vegan deserts and found  what seemed to be a very yummy recipe on Chocolate Covered Katie's website: http://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/2009/11/05/raw-vegan-mounds-bars/
When I got to the store to purchase the Cacao Bliss I found that it was $15 for a small jar - I didn't look at the ounces, but it was most likely 15 oz or less! This was ridiculous!! Instead, I satisfied my chocolate craving with an Endangered Species chocolate bar: http://www.chocolatebar.com/, delicious and vegan!

Did not eat well this weekend. I hope to get back on track this week & hit the gym again. With the gym closed this weekend and the weather a dreary, wet muck I didn't get to spend any time outside either. The plan is to do oatmeal in the mornings (until I finish up the bag & then switch to fresh fruits), smoothies for lunch, and a hearty meal for supper. On the list this week is a lentil/spinach stew of sorts & a tomato/pine nut/golden raisin pasta.

Sunday I do my shopping for the week and I picked up some vegan baking staples: agave nectar, turbinado sugar, etc. I was in a baking mood so I mixed up a batch of these: http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=6391.0 chocolate chip cookies. They sucked. Followed the recipe & I ended up with crunchy, crumbly, vegetable oil tasting sugary messes. I am having my sister take them to her classroom to see if her children will eat them. I was planning on throwing them in the trash.

There are so many vegan products I have never tried so I picked up my first vegan "cheese" today. I have been reading some terrible things about soy lately (will have to post about this later) so I selected rice cheese:
http://www.galaxyfoods.com/Products/VeganCheese/RiceVegan/riceveganSlices.stml
This was the particular brand I picked up in hopes to create a grilled cheese on tortilla. It tasted like rice. Big disappointment. So I am not hitting it off with vegan versions of traditional foods. We'll see what I come across next week.

The Turn + book review of Raw Food Detox Diet

Since Thursday evening's events I have been doing a lot of thinking. 
I cannot, on my budget, make my smoothie detox work. A suggestion was made to me that evening that I try a raw food detox, particularly Natalia Rose's Raw Food Detox Diet. This was luckily one of the many books which I had purchased when I began to further my education of nutrition but had yet to read. 
I pulled it off of the shelf and started reading. There are 5 steps in the detoxification process, as outlined my Ms. Rose, and Thursday evening I read the intro and step 1. At this point I was in agreement with much of what she had to say and was on board to try this detox starting Saturday morning.
Friday morning I had ingredients to make one more smoothie batch & had planned on grocery shopping after I finished work so I could get materials for supper & the weekend. This smoothie was supposed to make 2 quarts but only made 20 oz!! This isn't even enough for lunch - I couldn't squeeze breakfast out of this too.

It was then that I decided to suck it up. I had a bowl of steel-cut oatmeal and took the smoothie with me for lunch (as well as 8 oz of a smoothie which I had leftover from a small supplemental smoothie I made the night before.)

**This next section is quite candid, please do not read if you do not want to know too much information.**

As this is a learning process for me & perhaps many of you who are going to embark on such a journey I am going to be utterly honest about how this food reacted with my body.
I have eaten this oatmeal many times before I started my cleanse and have never had problems. But after 4 days of nothing but pureed fruits & greens my body was not prepared for what then entered. Oatmeal is quite heavy and I felt weighed down all morning. My stomach felt agitated and by noon, my bowels were in disagreement. 
I have not had a BM since Monday morning & now my body clearly wanted to pass this oatmeal through. After agitation all day I had my first BM Friday afternoon. I had not been in discomfort at all this week by not having a BM, rather my body had no need to pass anything as the smoothies become mostly juices after blending. "Real food" seemed to be the issue and my body is going to need to become accustomed to processing this once again.

*** You queasy folks may pick up reading again.***

During work on Friday I had time to finish reading The Raw Food Detox Diet. Please do not get the impression that I am not doing my job - Friday was an exception, to say the least, to what is normally a rather crazy and busy schedule.

About the book:
What I read in this book was an extreme view of how to eat and care for one's body.
Part 2 covers "quick exit combinations" which teach how we should eat food in order of how quickly it exits our body and tells us that we should never combine starches, animal products, nuts/seeds/dried fruits, & fresh  fruits in the same meal - or even within 3 hours of each other. And most importantly we are never to eat fruit unless we have a completely empty stomach.
Part 3 was still extreme.
Part 4 was the doozy! Ms. Rose discusses a crucial part of detoxification - "taking out the garbage." This, I simply could not get behind. She suggests everything from colonic hydration (look it up), enemas, brushing our skin, bouncing on trampolines, standing on our head, and sweating as means of ridding our body of toxins. 


Can you imagine how my life would appear:
friend: "Hey, do you want to catch a movie in an hour?"
me: "I would love to, but I am in the middle of brushing off some toxins & I am scheduled for my monthly colonic in 45 minutes."
friend: "Well, why don't we just catch a show later?"
me: "I don't know. I haven't had any time to jump on my trampoline yet today & I still need to spend some time inverted. Do you think the movie would be the same if I were upside-down?"

Folks, this is really where the woman lost me. She is not the first to suggest cleaning the colon as part of the detoxification process - in fact, many others suggest this, or even consider it necessary. However, I cannot bring myself to administer an enema or even worse, to allow someone to give me a colonic!
So, I did finish reading the book (which includes recipes & a weekly meal plan for 5 different levels of preparedness.) I was ready to try to do the detox, without bowel cleansing, until I read the meals.
Did I mention that I was a picky eater? The pickiest!

By the end of the afternoon I had given up. I feel confident that I gave my body 72+ hours of reprieve from processed foods & I still haven't had animal products since March 1st. I was ready to enter a normal lifestyle where I was simply a vegan without any crazy detox plans.

This is the point where I may have gone overboard. I have very little self-control when I comes to food. I am the type of person who goes out and buys a bag of chips but eats them in 2 days, instead of throughout the week. Or who buys some healthy almonds to save for little snacks between meals but ends up consuming them in one sitting in front of the TV. So, when I got home from work I dove right into some hummus which I had made last Saturday & enjoyed it with some red bell peppers - this was a nice snack.
But then I realized that I didn't have anything for supper. I didn't want to look through recipe books & didn't want to go shopping. I needed instant gratification & I was craving Mexican food.
So, that's what I did.

I did enjoy dinner, a veggie bean burrito sans cheese. It was great! But this was a little too much for my stomach to take on after 4 days of cleansing.  My stomach ached.
This morning I had oatmeal. My stomach aches again.

One thing that Natalia Rose may have had right in her book was a suggestion to only eat fresh fruit in the morning. Fruit passes through the body quickly, is good for you, filled with water, & most of all - it's light. She suggests that we work gradually throughout the day putting heavier foods in as we go along. This seems like a good suggestion (or at least my stomach thinks so right now.) Perhaps it is just me coming off of the cleanse & having difficulties processing "regular" foods - but I think it might be something I try.
I have considered keeping up with the smoothies for lunch/mid-day meals but Ms. Rose warns us about combining fruit with any other items in our stomach because it ferments. You will have to read the book to understand fully. And now she has me worried about combining the fruits with greens in my smoothies.
This entire process is about learning & trying new things and I am well on my way.

Running on Empty

I am embarrassed to post this, but that is one of the many purposes of this blog - so you can learn from my mistakes. I came home and immediately hopped onto the computer just to tell you about the most recent.

Today I felt hungry. Hungry after breakfast, hungry after lunch. This should have been a big clue to me, but alas, no. What it needed to be was a huge sign - neon lights and all - saying "Girl, you are stupid! You obviously did not get enough to eat." Instead, I simply thought that I was feeling particularly voracious and needed to settle my meddling mind & stomach down.

After work I went to the gym as I do most Monday-Thursday and found that I was having difficulty on the elliptical  - the elliptical, folks. This thing isn't even as hard as a treadmill and I can't get my legs to move? As I was 3/4 mile into my exercise I got to thinking about what I had to eat today.

--Well, I had 13-14 oz of smoothie this morning and 26 for lunch. That's normal.
What went into this smoothie: 2 apples, 2 bananas, 2 C spinach & 3 C water.
What the hell was I thinking?!  If you are good with numbers you will realize how many calories that I was attempting to consume as my daily intake:
Calories in a medium-large size apple: 95-115
Calories in a medium-sized banana: 105
Calories in a packed cup of spinach: 14

Okay, you math whizzes, have you done your calculations?
That is a whopping 468 calories!!
This is what I was hoping would get me through the day - 468 itsy bitsy, raw calories! Dumb, folks. I'm dumb. And on top of this I am going to the gym 4-5 days a week and burning at least that each day. Running on Empty!  The goal of this cleanse isn't to starve myself & it isn't to loose weight either; but apparently that's the road I'm headed down. What has happened is that I am not measuring my smoothies by their contents, but rather their quantity. I haven't been thinking about calories and have merely been thinking about how much smoothie I am consuming in one day. Now, granted, some of these smoothies are much thicker (less water - more substance) than others. Today's smoothie - not substantial enough on its own.

I will not be continuing down this path of self-destruction & starvation. In fact, after the realization hit me mid stride on the elliptical, I decided to save today's calories and head home. What I need is a new plan - a plan to consume more calories. This would seem easy, as one would simply say - "Well, have more smooties." This is a great idea, except for the fact that even though I have a "real job" I am still rather poor. I shop at Greenlife http://www.greenlifegrocery.com/www/docs/1 which I love, but organic is pricey & produce in general is too. Example: I picked up ingredients the other day to make 4 smoothies - $18 and I already had many of the ingredients at home. And if I need to have 2-3 smoothies per day then I am going to go broke trying to go green here!

I'd like to reach out to anyone who has any good ideas of how to make this cleanse work within a reasonable budget. Is is feasible? Do I shorten the cleanse? Do I call it quits?
While I try to figure things out I will still be having smoothies - just many more of them.

Cravings

Yes, it is only day 3 of round 3 and it feels as if it could be day 25. Although I had solid foods this weekend, because I started my cleanse on March 2nd, I have mostly been drinking smoothies for the past week. Goodness, do I miss the crispy crunch of dry cereal! To me, cereal could have been considered a food group of its own. There are plenty of vegan cereals out there, so when I am done with the cleanse I have many options; however I am not just going vegan but I am trying to treat my body better and eat better foods.
I haven't had cereal with dairy milk since early January and had been eating cereal with soy or plain oatmeal with wild blueberries tossed in (frozen as they are not in season.) And even though oatmeal didn't have a 'crunch' like cereal, I am missing that too.
I have also found that when I am very hungry a smoothie does not initially satisfy my hunger. Because I drink the smoothies slowly my stomach does not immediately get the feeling of fullness as it would if I chowed down on a bowl of cereal. Smoothies do satisfy my hunger after I have finished one & I suppose that is all that matters.
I have been perusing tons of vegan blogs and found out that Oprah did a vegan cleanse this past year.
 http://www.oprah.com/food/The-21-Day-Cleanse-Oprahs-Blog-1
Although she did not have smoothies (only vegan foods) she seemed to be having some of the same issues that I am having - feelings of withdrawl and cravings to eat things that we know we shouldn't. The majority of my cravings have been for things that are crunchy - that I can chew. However, cheese is the only animal product that I am having difficulty with. Before I was vegan I thought about cheese a lot - I love cheese! And now, I feel like it is on my brain even more. I am hoping that at the end of my 21 days those cravings will have passed.

Education + Dedication

A quick overview of my cleanse/detox:
Yesterday evening was quite difficult. When I get home I just want something to munch/crunch and this seems to be the hardest part for me. This morning, however, I felt fantastic and had a particularly yummy smoothie.

About my smoothies:
Currently I am getting my recipes from a book by Victoria Boutenko - Green Smoothie Revolution & I quite like it. The only difficulty that I am coming across is a descrepency of how much smoothie that each recipe makes. Each recipe is listed as making one or two quarts. I choose to make the 2 quart recipes so that I do not have to blend as often. However, most of these recipes only turn out 30-50 oz each. I suppose that it could vary depending on the size of my fruits and greens but a quart difference is just ridiculous.
Consumption:
I know that many people are worried about me getting enough calories & nutrition but I would like to set your minds at ease. I consume a minimum of 55 oz of smoothie per day but often I make more when I am feeling hungry. In your average smoothie you can have quite a bit of fruits and veggies.

Take this morning's smoothie:
1/4 C water
2 bananas
1 large bosc pear
1 large gala apple
2 C (packed) kale (I used dinosaur kale, also known as lacinato blue)

Although this smoothie told me that it would make 2 quarts, it only made 30 oz and I was very disappointed because it was particularly delicious. So this smoothie was halved - half for breakfast and half for dinner. Lunch consists of 26 oz of another smoothie. Smoothies must be consumed slowly for better assimilation of nutrients, mixing of saliva, and warming of drink; thus my "lunch" smoothie will be spread throughout the afternoon approx. 11:30-3:30 taking half at a time.

About being a newbie:
Because veganism is very new to me I am still learning. I have purchased a number of books on the subject so that I can learn what type of nutrients & vitamins need to be in my daily diet. There are a few problems here - reading a lot of information all at once is hard to digest and even more difficult to retain. Also, I have had trouble getting motivated to read all of these books. After a day at work, sitting down to a textbook style read is not exactly high on my list of entertaining/relaxing activities. Another issue is that new studies & theories in health and nutrition are constantly being developed and many people have very different ideas on the subject, so often these books contradict each other.
I do realize that weather we are vegan or not we should be learning as much as we can to take care of our bodies and this takes time and effort - now it's just a matter of getting down to task.

Girl Gone Green

Before I jump to the present, let me rewind time to March 1st 2010.

This was the day on which I had planned to go vegan & I was going to do it in a big way. I didn't simply plan on cutting out dairy and eggs but I was going to cleanse my body of all animal products and start fresh. To aid in this process I had purchased (after two months of research) a VitaMix which I was anxiously awaiting to arrive in the mail. This cleanse, I had decided, would be 21 days because that seemed to be the magic number of so many cleanses. I would not follow any set detox/cleanse but would consume green smoothies - breakfast, lunch, & dinner - for 3 weeks in hopes of accomplishing a few things.
One, to flush out animal products.
Two, *and this was the most important to me* I hoped that by the end of the 21 days that I would like more vegetables and greens.
As you will notice as I work through this blog - I am a very picky eater & veggies are one of my least favorite foods.


March 1st - VitaMix arrives in the mail, elation ensues! Did not begin cleanse due to late arrival of blender but did go vegan - 0 animal products.

March 2nd - Began cleanse. It was hard.

March 6th - Aborted cleanse. I was getting sick in the mornings & credited this to the consumption of ruffage on an empty stomach.

March 7th - Realized that the illness was caused by a multi-vitamin on an empty stomach, not the smoothies.

March 8th - Cleanse restart. Quit for dinner. Because I had quit my cleanse that weekend, I had a fabulous fridge full of yummy leftovers that I couldn't seem to let go to waste -  or in my sister's mouth.

Felt guilty.

March 9th - Cleanse, day 1 - round 3. I am determined that I am going to complete this.