Gothic Granola

These peanut butter oatmeal protein balls have been taking over the interwebs. I put my own twist on the recipes found in Dr. Phoenyx's Instagram and Gimme Some Oven .  

The first time I made this recipe, I soaked the dates and it ended up as this: frosting, which I used on my 22nd birthday cake. The second and third times, I wised up and kept things dry to make raw chocolate...stuff...fudge...freezer snacks.

The first time I made this recipe, I soaked the dates and it ended up as this: frosting, which I used on my 22nd birthday cake. The second and third times, I wised up and kept things dry to make raw chocolate...stuff...fudge...freezer snacks.

I'm in the midst of a juice fast. I don't have a juicer, just a Vitamix, so it's more I'm on an "obliterated fruits and veggies" fast. While checking out Khepra's Raw Food Juice Bar online recently, I found their   juice fast  instructions. Says I, I've got a Vitamix and some cash to spend on raw materials.  Off I went in hopes of resetting my portion size concept and purify my diet.

They really do. I served over 250 squares of cacao goji hemp protein bars on Wednesday for Foodie Call. This week's theme was Whole Body, the supplements department. I modified this superfood bar from Earthsprout , having bookmarked the idea when Eleanor included it in her newsletter earlier this year.

Rather than quote a lot of Shakespeare, or speak in meta-voice about how much I struggled to write this post (I didn't...I just began writing), I begin at the beginning. What is in a name? As I served this dessert that met the  Health Starts Here  standards for Wednesday's Foodie Call, I refined my description. "Sweet hommos" was a turn-off to a lot of people. Come on, foodies, you'd try garlic ice cream, right? Roasted garlic ice cream would actually be pretty tasty, methinks. "Cookie Dough" confused many people into thinking it was actually raw dough. Nope, it's the flavour. Kind of like "Birthday Cake" ice cream from Coldstone Creamery. It ain't cake; it tastes reminiscent of the real deal. I could go on, and I don't intend to insult the patrons' intelligence. I'll pacify myself with the platitude, "genius is usually misunderstood," wink wink. Anyway, I didn't scale up the dates enough when I used an ent...

Sacrifice II My mother would be proud of me. This recipe contains chocolate chips. In the words of one of my fellow team members, “Is it going to be healthy, or good?” when I described the recipe I was going to present for yesterday’s Foodie Call. I remade the cereal bars I made last year for my friend Liz’s Fourth of July shindig . Calling them “Sacrifice to the Gods of Freedom and Democracy” would probably turn off most folk. Here is my recipe for the huge batch (three sheet pans!) of “Trail Treats.” You can customise the crunchy bits and trail mix to your heart’s content.

Stocking the Freezer: Blueberry Cheezecake Blueberry Un-Blues Part II of III Don't you like my academic-style headings of late? The formula is "Gerund Phrase COLON Nouns Nouns Nouns." Or something like that. Add an "OF" phrase and you have it made. "Gothic Granola: Deconstructing and Rebuilding the Nature of Reality" since 2011. This recipe represents another must-do, like every vegan food blogger out there, to make raw cheezecake at some point, primarily using cashews and fresh fruit. Done and done.

I am very American in the fact that I like my car. Today my car was the instrument through which I received another wakeup call.

Post II of III in Simple Gifts series Changing your health, particularly losing weight, isn't just about letting go of pounds, it's also about letting go of that which doesn't serve you: people, jobs, over-the-top responsibilities, habits...in short, Revolution! A revolutionary new way to have a brownie is this proteinaceous snack or pudding or dessert. It will satisfy you and give you energy to burn without a crash because the plant protein and fibre will slow down the absorption of the sugar from the dates.

This recipe is ridiculously simple. I had beet stems leftover from buying beets in November. Instead of chewing through them raw or using them in juice, I decided to tenderize them in a quick “refrigerator pickle” with sauerkraut.   For fun, I threw in some raw apple cider vinegar, caraway seeds, and German mustard.   So that the beets and acidic juices wouldn’t turn a container pink, I used a glass container.   I stuck it in the back of the fridge and forgot about it for a few hours. When I took it out, the beet stems had become slightly less chewy and the sour, salty sauerkraut had balanced their natural sweetness.   Success! Similarly, I made stinky raw daikon more palatable by grating it on a mandolin cutter and combining it with sweet crushed pineapple for a slaw of sorts. Then I ran these recipes together and made daikon kraut slaw.

For the last two years, I've ended Christmas with a pile and a half of cookies in January of which I'm bored by Marilyn Manson's birthday (5 January).   There are, of course, worse problems to have. I read  this  op-ed today in the New York Times where a Catholic priest gives his view of the world. "One true thing is this: Faith is lived in family and community, and God is experienced in family and community," Father Kevin O'Neil writes. We live in this earthly plane.  We regularly experience reality as earthly beings.  "I really do believe God enters the world through us," Father O'Neil said, and "[w]e need one another to be God's presence." How do we show love to one another?  How do we show kindness to ourselves, our loved ones, our friends, our enemies, and our environment? There is no one right answer to this question.  It's up to you to ask yourself and listen hard to the still voice in your heart.  That voice has the...

Rule number one of being vegan and gluten-free: always bring your own snacks.

On Tuesday, one of my bestest buds from high school invited me to a Fourth of July party in D.C. and she requested that I bring “some food or drink to placate the gods of freedom and democracy.”  However, I couldn’t use the stove since the gas burners have electric starters.  As with  this episode last year , I took the Metro to my brother’s apartment in order to sleep and make cereal bars.

With one baked sweet potato, I made sweet potato pie for a party on Sunday.  I made the pie a day in advance because the filling is unbaked. I made this pie for a potluck birthday party given in honour of the Buddhist nun who leads the meditation group I attend near school.  She’s originally from West Virginia, so I baked the pie in my purple Fiestaware pie plate (Fiestaware’s still  made in America, folks ).  When I brought her a slice, she said “This is pretty good!”

A lovely dessert for all occasions, chocolate mousse makes passing good vice cream when frozen, too. You guessed it--no pictures! Just cats.