A Very Vegan Easter Basket

For those of us who celebrate Easter with little ones, we have to prepare for the very important annual visit from the Easter Bunny. Easter baskets usually create visions of tons of candy and eggs - which, for a vegan, can be a daunting proposition! Fortunately, there are many great ways to put together a veg-friendly Easter basket for the little chick in your life.

This year, Baby M's Easter is pretty straightforward. We will be setting out her Easter basket (passed from Grandma to Daddy to her!) and leaving carrots for the Easter Bunny, naturally! Since she (thankfully) has no interest in things like candy, the Easter Bunny will be bringing her a book:

And these adorable eggs:

I have heard wonderful things about these eggs and that they are fun toy even beyond the holiday season because you can use them as a shape sorter, enjoy the squeaky "yolks," learn about colors, etc., so I was pretty excited about this find!

When Baby M is older, or if you have a toddler, you can add things like stickers, pencils, coloring books, or even a small stuffed animal to the basket if you would like to keep the candy at bay. 

Of course, when Baby M is older, she will likely want to decorate eggs and get candy from the Easter Bunny. The good news is I have a couple of tricks up my sleeve that I think will work when the time comes! I should preface this by saying I am NOT at all craftsy or talented with this type of thing, so chances are if even I can pull this off, you will likely do an even more amazing job. :)

For decorating eggs, there's no need to hard boil eggs. Instead, you can pick up a pack of ceramic or wooden eggs and decorate those instead. You can dye them, paint on them, use markers, stickers - wherever your imagination takes you! And the nice thing about those eggs is you can keep them for posterity (and they don't stink!). For an Easter egg hunt, you can use your new fancy decorated eggs or else buy plastic eggs and fill them with stickers or little candies.

But what about candy? The good news is that accidentally vegan Easter candy abounds. We have been a fan of decorating with Starburst jelly beans or Jolly Ranchers hard candies or jelly beans. Skittles are also vegan (something I've leaned on during many a road trip!), as are Justin's dark chocolate peanut butter cups.

Or, if you are looking for something extra special (or just want to the traditional chocolate rabbit), look no further than Farm Sanctuary for their vegan Easter bunny and basket. It's delicious AND you're supporting a great cause, all at once!

So don't despair! Easter doesn't mean leaving tradition at the curb. In fact, you can continue to celebrate and show compassion for the wonderful animals that come to mind this time of the year, too. :)

The World's Easiest Vegan Fudge Recipe (Or How to Make Friends and Influence People)

I confess; this post might end up being my undoing. I am so excited about this can't lose fudge recipe: I know how daunting vegan baking and cooking can seem (though I promise, it doesn't have to be!) and just how difficult it can be to find an easy vegan fudge recipe that is still delicious, which is why I decided to share it.

And therein lies the personal problem for me. I have made this fudge countless times and shared it with friends and family at parties and brought it as a hostess gift. It is always wildly popular and loved by all who eat it, but once those folks read this post and see just how easy it is to make, they might feel like I'm phoning it in whenever I bring it as a gift. But for my fair readers, it's a risk I've decided to take.

I am truly stretching my brain to remember where I found this recipe for the first time. I remember the day I found the recipe. I just desperately wanted fudge. Fudge usually involves marshmallows; I don't usually keep vegan marshmallows in my house and they can be on the expensive side (though I strongly recommend the delicious Dandies brand if you are inclined to go buy some). I also wasn't excited at the prospect of standing over a stove and going through the actual rigamarole of fudge-making; I just wanted to fudge to appear. I think I may also have wanted peanut butter and chocolate, too.

Now that I reread that passage, I must have been having a cranky day of fudge craving - yikes!

Anyway, I ended up ordering vegan fudge from Realist Mermaid on Etsy. When the fudge arrived later that week, it was delicious (though I just checked, and sadly, it appears she took down her store). But that did not fix the problem that I wanted fudge NOW. So I looked around on Allrecipes and found what appeared to be the world's easiest, three-ingredient recipe for fudge. All three ingredients were in my house. There was almost zero effort in putting it together. And there was chocolate AND peanut butter in it. I excitedly made it and I've never looked back!

This fudge recipe has been a hero to my countless times. I've thrown together as a dessert when I've been invited to parties at the last minute, it's been a great on-the-go snack (both for winter, when fudge tends to make a holiday appearance and summer, when I want to keep the oven off), it is fancy enough to be wrapped up nicely and presented as a hostess gift, and it can also feed at least one pregnant lady who OH MY GOODNESS NEEDS CHOCOLATE NOW. (I'm going to keep it real with you - I'm actually eating this fudge while I'll type this post.)

Here's how it all comes together!

These are the three ingredients you need - one cup of vegan chocolate chips, one cup of peanut butter, and 3/4 cup of maple syrup. For chocolate chips, I like the Enjoy Life brand, though I've also been known to get the Whole Foods 365 brand Vegan Semisweet Chocolate Chips. (Ghirardelli Semisweet Chips also used to be vegan, but it's been awhile since I've checked.) For peanut butter, I always use natural peanut butter. I tend to get chunky, but smooth or chunky will work. For maple syrup, just get the real stuff. Grade A or B is fine; the grade has to do with the color and flavor, not the quality, so just get what's on sale (I keep a big jug of it in my fridge).

Add all of the ingredients to your pot and melt together, stirring constantly, over medium-low to medium heat. This should only take a couple of minutes...

...until it looks smooth and yummy, like this! (Of course, if you use chunky peanut butter, the peanut chunks will remain. I think that's a positive thing personally!)

Line a square pan with parchment paper. Pour in the fudge mixture and spread it evenly throughout the pan. You might find the edges do not neatly go down; that's okay. Those pieces will just turn out "rustic," which means your friends will believe you that it's homemade, or you can just cut off those little pieces and eat them yourself later. :) If you don't have parchment paper, you can also grease the pan with vegan butter (like Earth Balance), but I strongly encourage you to use parchment paper; it really makes the job - and most any other baking or cooking job - easier.

When you're done, cover and put in the fridge for at least an hour. With this batch, I was tired, so I stuck it in the fridge overnight. When the fudge is firm, remove it from the fridge. Lift the fudge out of the pan by holding onto the parchment paper.

Remove the parchment paper and put the block of fudge on a cutting board. Cut up into slices (I usually cut columns, then rows, as demonstrated above).

And voila! Delicious fudge, ready to be shared! Or not... :) Happy eating!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge
adapted (I'm pretty sure) from Allrecipes

Ingredients:
1 c. vegan semisweet chocolate chips or chunks
1 c. peanut butter, smooth or chunky (I use natural peanut butter)
3/4 c. maple syrup (Grade A or B is  fine)

1) Melt together chocolate, peanut butter, and maple syrup on the stove over medium-low to medium heat until smooth.
2) Pour mixture into an 8- or 9-inch square pan lined with parchment paper or greased with vegan butter, like Earth Balance.
3) Cover and chill in refrigerator for at least an hour, until firm.
4) Cut fudge into squares (if using parchment paper, I recommend lifting the fudge out of the pan first, peeling off the paper, then cutting up the squares on a cutting board).
5) Store in the fridge.

A Bunch of New

Hi everyone! I apologize for the extended hiatus. Thank you for coming back!

During this time off, three fun new things have happened that I want to share - one related to food, one related to healthy living, and one just because I'm excited. :)

Working in reverse order, here's the new excitement in our life - our third fuzzy girl, Molly the Dog!


Molly joined our family in March from PAWS Chicago. Were we thinking about adopting another dog? Kind of. Greg and I tried to adopt Red, a very sweet puppy who became paralyzed after he was shot by robbers, last fall. Let me take a moment to plug Red - he would be an awesome addition to your home! He is very sweet and playful. We just couldn't adopt him because he needs to be a solo doggy, something he couldn't get in our crazy house. If you have questions about him, let us know!

Anyway, Red planted the seed in our brain for a third puppy, although we weren't actively looking. And then, one day, Greg and I were volunteering at PAWS, Greg saw Molly's face, and we knew there was no turning back. Molly is a four-year-old German Shepherd-Alaskan Malamute mix. She is a very sweet and mellow girl and has filled a spot in our house we didn't know was empty until we brought her home. Her doggy sisters Sheila and Lucy are just in love with her! I haven't been able to capture a really good picture of the three of them yet , because Molly has a gift for evading the camera - even when she's sleeping! When I do, I'll change my profile pic. But in the mean time, I do have proof these three love to snuggle.


The next piece of fun news? One of my very bestest friends, Sonja, has started her own blog, Defying Gravity, and I hope you will check it out! Sonja will be blogging about her experiences with running and skating, and I can't recommend her highly enough. I could listen to Sonja talk about her active lifestyle for hours; she's an incredibly engaging person who has wonderful insights on becoming and staying active. Her enthusiasm for running gave me the bug, and three years later, I'm training for my first marathon! Anyway, check out her blog; if you're checking out my blog because you'd like to live a healthier lifestyle, then you'll love Sonja's blog. Or, if you eat way too many cookies like me and that's why you're here, then Sonja can help you with that, too. :)

And finally - the food! One of my friends suggested a few months ago I try to incorporate some raw recipes into my diet. Although I was skeptical, I have to say, all of the luscious desserts I have made so far are awesome! I'm definitely not 100% raw, but I love incorporating raw foods (and desserts especially!) into my diet. Seeing as how the length of this post has already gotten way out of hand, I'll tease your taste buds with a recipe for the most amazing raw fudge from super raw enthusiast Alissa Cohen ever and I'll focus my next post on my thoughts about going raw - and the yummy results that follow. And a bonus with this recipe? Delicious chocolate without baking!

Fudge Balls (adapted from Alissa Cohen) - and no, not Chocolate Salty Balls
Yields: about 15-20 fudgy pieces

Ingredients:
2 cups pitted dates
2 cups almond butter
1/2 cup cocoa powder (or carob powder, if that strikes your fancy)

1) Process dates in a food processor until smooth.
2) Add remaining ingredients and process until well mixed.
3) Using a cookie scoop or a tablespoon, scoop the mixture into individual balls.

Keeps in the fridge for 7-10 days; they can also be frozen.

Cheaply Decadent

I never thought I would see "cheaply" describe "decadent" in my life. But I think homemade truffles might be just that.

As I think this blog has made clear on a fairly continuous basis, I just cannot get enough of chocolate. How so? The summer I gave up chocolate, I lost 40 pounds. Well, there was the whole diet and exercise thing, but let's be real, no chocolate probably played a major role there, too.

But now that chocolate has firmly re-entered my life, I'm not too shy to say that I can enjoy it in many forms and, thank goodness, it has not been too difficult to go the vegan route and still preserve all that I love about chocolate. One of my weaknesses, though - and one of my expensive weaknesses - is truffles. Compounding the problem is that I live in the home city of Vosges Haut Chocolate, which simply has the best truffles. EVER. The concept behind Vosges is simple. Chocolate by itself is not that exciting; however, by adding some slight flavors (some you can taste directly, and others you can't), chocolate can *pop* in exciting and unexpected ways. And my addiction began!

But boy, do you pay the price for that goodness. Nine of those awesome truffles are $26. And are they worth it? Yes. Can I afford to keep that up to feed my addiction and impress my family and friends? No. Fortunately, because I apparently have the cognitive level of a very small child, I found that as long as I avoid going to the Vosges store, I forget about them. Out of sight, out of mind.

And then, my neighborhood Whole Foods opened, and started selling Vosges chocolate bars - clearly NOT a good situation. And although I had a difficult time putting the words "cheaply decadent" together, I have an even harder time putting "will" with "power." Yipe!

Enter the Barefoot Contessa, here to save me again! I saw her make these truffles on her Food Network show, and I was amazed at how easy they are to make and just how darn fancy they are; use soy cream and read the labels on your chocolate, and you've also got a vegan treat. I also strongly suspect that these truffles make a good "base" recipe; that is, at the stage where you add the coffee (which provides said *pop* here), I wonder if you sub in some of the Vosges secret ingredients if you will get an equally fancy result with a different flavor. In her original recipe, Ina Garten adds 2 tablespoons of Grand Marnier as well as the coffee. But I'll save those fun experiments for down the road.

Chocolate Truffles (adapted from the Barefoot Contessa)
Yields: A whole bunch of truffles (although these store well in the fridge)

Ingredients:
1/2 pound good bittersweet chocolate (My vegan fave is Equal Exchange or 365 Brand dark chocolate)
1/2 pound good semisweet chocolate (Ghirardelli semisweet chocolate chips are vegan)
1 cup soy cream 2 tablespoons
1 tablespoon prepared coffee
1/2 teaspoon good vanilla extract
Powdered sugar
Cocoa powder

1) If necessary, chop up the chocolate and put them in a mixing bowl.
2) Heat the soy cream in a small saucepan until it just boils and then cool for 20 seconds.
3) Pour the cream on the chocolate (be careful; try to find a bowl that won't get hot). Slowly stir the cream and chocolates together until the chocolate is completely melted.
4) Stir in coffee and vanilla, and set aside at room temperature for an hour.
5) Using two teaspoons or a cookie scoop, scoop round balls of the chocolate mixture onto a baking sheet with parchment paper. Roll each ball of chocolate in your hands to roughly make it round. If desired, roll in confectioners' sugar, cocoa powder, or a mixture of the two.
6) Store in the fridge.