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Protein-Packed Cashew Butter Cups That Have No Business Being So G-D Delicious

June 2, 2017
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Not only have I just written the most honest blog post title yet, but I’ve also somehow made absolute MAGIC in the kitchen. And because I’m super generous (sui generis?), I’m sharing the recipe with you today. I really can’t get over how delicious these cashew butter cups are. Like I said, they have no business being so amazing, and while they also have no business being called ‘cashew butter cups’, it sounds a lot better and is easier to say that than ‘random protein powders and sneaky bean cups’ ewww I knowww but stay with me. 
So yeah, these are sneaky aquafaba (no aquafaba used but I like saying aquafaba instead of ‘af’ because the latter looks like a typo and I am deliberate about my werds) healthy little treats. Sure, they are encased in chocolate and full of maple syrup but look at everything else! It’s basically oatmeal, and you can and should have these for breakfast. Start your day right! Who needs coffee? 
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obligatory fancy paper towel shot i’m so fance-ayy you don’t even knowww i don’t know the words
   I was inspired to make these because of several things. First of all, I realized I hadn’t made my amazing homemade peanut butter cups in like a year, and that’s not right. Second of all, I have a very-many-kilo tub of cashew butter I got super cheap recently and need to use before we set off on our upcoming long-term travel (more on that next week!).  Third, I like chocolate-y desserts and especially nut buttery cups, but I also like getting a shittonne of protein because I like working out and being stronger than all the non-vegans at my gym (ALL OF EM) and according to my husband my upper back is getting scary so we gotta maintain that (#SoSwole #VegansWhoSwole #WhatDoesSwoleMean). So, like Joey with his hot girls on one hand and jam on the other, we’re gonna put those hands together and make chocolate nut buttery cups that happen to be full of protein and oats and nut butters and generally every food necessary for sick gains bro.
   I got the idea to mainly use cashews and to add in oats (god I love oats and thank goodness for that considering they will compose roughly 1/3 of my diet this summer #trainlife) from The Loopy Whisk blog. I was originally going to adhere more closely to her recipe, but as always I cannot be controlled in the kitchen and I went nuts with other ingredients and the powders and randomness that all turned out wonderfully. Chaos is yummy. And with this sort of thing, you can be super flexible about your measurements and anything you’d like to personally add (or subtract) and it’ll most likely turn out great, especially when you cuppify it in chocolate. I am still so shocked at how amazing this filling is, though. It really tastes like mildy cashew buttery cookie dough! This makes a lot a lot of filling, which I am happy about because I made some tiny balls (hehe balls) of just the filling and froze them, so I have these little ice cream-y cookie dough balls that are really nutritious and perfect for warm weather snacking, especially in a land that doesn’t believe in air conditioning. Who needs AC when you have frozen mini cookie dough balls! You can also just melt more chocolate and use all the filling up making cups and cups and endless cups, if you have that many cupcake liners/Silpat mats/time units. Or you can just halve the filling recipe like a CHUMP but there are no chumps reading this blog so enjoy the extra however you please.
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I’m super obsessed with the little smooth hats the silicone mat creates
PROTEIN-PACKED CASHEW BUTTER CUPS
Ingredients
For the filling:

  • 3/4 cup cashew butter
  • 1/3 cup peanut butter
  • 1 overflowing cup chickpeas (what other kind of cup of chickpeas IS there am I right)
  • 2/3 cup oats
  • 2/3 cup brown rice protein powder
  • 1/3 cup pea protein powder
  • 1 tablespoon ground flax seed
  • 1/4 cup coconut oil, melted
  • 1/3 cup maple syrup
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/3 cup unsweetened almond milk – be flexible with the amount if like me you have to use a blender (more on that below) and also you know what, if you have a sweetened and/or flavored milk, just go nuts and use it we are making a sweet thang after all you get down with your bad self!

For the chocolate:

  • 1 cup chocolate chips
  • 2 tablespoons coconut oil
  • Flaked sea salt for dusting if you roll like that and don’t have high blood presh
Directions

  1. Get yourself a silicone mini muffin/candy tray – it’s amazing and so easy and they will just slide right out – or a regular mini muffin baking tray (or regular muffin if you like your cups giant) lined with mini cupcake liners.
  2. Melt your chocolate with the coconut oil. You probably know how to do this better than I do because half the time I seize it and not the good way like seizing the day like open the gates and seize the day and answer the call and don’t delay and oh no my chocolate is ruined and I have to eat it all and start over. Do it right.
  3. Pour a thin layer of the melted chocolate in the tray holes. Refrigerate tray so the chocolate solidifies.
  4. Put all the filling ingredients in a food processor, or, if you are like me and somehow STILL don’t have a food processor but you get by just fine making hummus err day err DAY, use a blender. If you are like me and have a regular blender and not a VitaMix or BlendTec, you are going to use the plunger sooo much to help it blend and you’ll get such an amazing forearm workout that you will need these cups even more. Push and mix and turn that plunger as hard and fast as you can to make that blender blend. You might also need more milk, but don’t make it toooo thin. 
  5. Blend blend blend.
  6. Now fill all the chocolate cups with about 2 tablespoons of filling each. See picture for how cleanly and neatly I did mine (lol no). If you have time, freeze the tray at this point, or at least refrigerate it, so that the filling is solid before you pour hot chocolate all over it. If, like me, you don’t got time for that, it’ll be okay to move on.
  7. Pour melted chocolate over top the chocolate cups filled with the filling. You’ve made complete cups! Now you can dust the outsides with fun things like flaked sea salt, or maybe a cinnamon-sugar mixture, or crushed nuts or even chia seeds if you’re nasty. 
  8. Def refrigerate the tray now. Wait like 15 minutes and then sneak one and it’ll be amazing.
  9. You should store the cups in the fridge. I’d say they last like 5-6 days before I’d question whether they got icky so freeze a lot if you want.
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obligatory gorgeous inside blender shot you are welcome
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Step 3: the first chocolate layer
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Step 6! We’re getting there!
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i’m so neat
Yay we did it! Aren’t they soo good? I am so excited about these and I hope you like them. Enjoy! 
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Veganizing “Friends”: “That wonderful, nutty, cakey pie thing…”

September 14, 2013
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I’ve gotten gif happy

PictureThis is how I feel about this dessert

     I’m having so much fun veganizing food featured on “Friends”! My to-do list for the next few weeks is pretty darn long, but somehow I forgot the subject of today’s post until the lovely dropscone suggested that I do it. Thank you for reminding me of a favorite Ross moment! It comes from the episode “The One with the East German Laundry Detergent”, when Ross, yet again oblivious to others’ feelings and the tone of their words, says the following: 

Rachel: (waitressing) Does anybody want anything else?

Ross: Oh, yeah, last week you had a wonderful, nutty, chocolaty kind of a cakey pie thing. (Rachel gives him a dirty look) Nothing, just, just, I’m fine.

YEAH YEAH! With absolutely no other information to go on, we’re going to make the wonderful, nutty, chocolaty kind of cakey pie thing from Central Perk!! For my own benefit, I decided to make it less ‘cake that can be served easily  in a coffee shop’ and more ‘cream pie that can be served easily on my table’.
     Obviously, if I’m making a pie that I’m going to eat, and I have this little to work off of, I’m going to use Speculoos. I hope you know what Speculoos is. It’s miraculous. If you don’t have access to this European cinnamony cookie butter, use peanut butter! Oh I bet it would be great with peanut butter! Or really any nut butter of your choice. Or just with chocolate! 
     We’re definitely going to start with a graham cracker crust taken to another level – made not with graham crackers, but with Speculoos cookies! Duh! 
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NB: Trader Joe’s Speculoos cookies are indeed vegan, but their version of the cookie butter is NOT (because of how the sugar is processed, so be careful because the ingredients do look vegan-friendly)
SPECULOOS COOKIE CRUST!
INGREDIENTS: 

  • 6 oz. speculoos/biscoff/cinnamon graham cookies (the box is 7oz. but I ate some obvs.)
  • 4T margarine, plus more if needed
DIRECTIONS:

  1. Put the cookies in a food processor and grind to a crumbly powder
  2. Mix cookie powder with the margarine with your fingers until it’s all covered, and press into a pie dish
  3. Bake at 375 for 15 minutes. 
Step 2: We’re going to candy some pecans! 
CANDIED PECANS!
INGREDIENTS:

  • 8 oz. crushed raw pecans
  • 1/4C margarine
  • 1C light brown sugar
  • 1/4C water

Step 3: Making the Speculoos chocolate mousse! 

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Obviously my big jar was already empty
SPECULOOS CHOCOLATE MOUSSE! 
INGREDIENTS:

  • 1 package silken tofu
  • 1/2C Speculoos cookie butter spread
  • 1/3C melted chocolate
SPECULOOS CHOCOLATE GANACHE!
INGREDIENTS:

  • 10 oz dark chocolate (chips, squares, whatever)
  • 1/3C Speculoos
DIRECTIONS:

  1. Bring the sugar, margarine, and water to a boil
  2. Once boiling, add pecans, lower to a simmer, and stir constantly until it thickens
  3. Then, spread 2/3 of the pecans onto the graham crust (above) 

DIRECTIONS: 

  1. Blend everything in a blender!
  2. Then, spread the mousse over the pecan layer which is over the cookie crust 
  3. Then stick it in the fridge while you make the top
DIRECTIONS:

  1. Melt! 
So! At this point, we have this: 

  1. Speculoos cookie crust on the bottom
  2. A layer of candied pecans
  3. A pouffy layer of speculoos chocolate mousse
  4. Then – layer the rest of your candied pecans on top of the mousse (See picture above right) 
  5. Lastly – pour the melted chocolate+speculoos over the top. It’ll be a really thick layer! 
  6. Stick that in the fridge for at least an hour! 

And voila! It’s so easy, right? And you end up with this beauty:

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Enjoy!! And thanks dropscone for the deeeelicious idea!!!! (And thank you Europe, for Speculoos.) It’s really one of the most delicious desserts I’ve ever made.

Giveaway trivia!!
– What happened to Rachel’s clothes in this episode (“The One with the East German Laundry Detergent”)??
– Do you think Gunther knows what Speculoos is?

New Orleans Inspirations: Fava Bean, Tempeh, & Okra File Gumbo

September 5, 2014
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PictureOh okra, you beautiful alien you

     Oh lordy lord, how good is gumbo?! WHO DAT! When I was in New Orleans last month, gumbo was obviously being sold everywhere you looked. I had delicious Gumbo Z’Herbes at the famous Gumbo Shop, which is a naturally vegetarian (and vegan if the roux isn’t made with butter) traditional gumbo, with parsley and cabbage and other leafy greens. I loved it and I could eat something like it every day, but seeing the tremendous variety of more interesting non-veg gumbos made me hella jealous.

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I was so happy to find a meaty vegan gumbo at Seed, my favorite restaurant in NOLA, which used sausage-y seitan and a darker, more tomato-based broth than the zerby one (how I pronounce it because I only had one semester of French). So, seriously on my first day back home, I decided to make gumbo that was inspired by the Seed version’s meatiness but that retained the vegetable-heavy, healthy soul of Tess D’Zerbervilles. It also showcases okra, in my mind a necessary gumbo ingredient, and uses a variety of beans. Also! The file powder came straight from a central grocery store in NOLA, so it’s all totally legit. (Yes is it Zatarain’s but like that’s how you Jazz It Up!)
FAVA BEAN, TEMPEH, & OKRA FILE GUMBO
So, I’ve heard that okra, file powder, and a roux are all different thickening options, so you are only supposed to – or you only need to – use one, because they do the same job. I refuse to cut good solid American jobs so we are using all of them buster! 
Ingredients

  • 2/3 C canola oil
  • 2/3 C chickpea flour 
  • 2 medium onions, small dice 
  • 1C chopped carrots
  • 3C chopped celery (about an entire heart plus a ½ cup or more
  • 3C chopped okra
  • ½ C chopped mixed bell peppers (had some red and green left over from previous night’s salad, as well as a few tomatoes!)
  • 1 can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
  • 1C fava beans (found the awesome frozen favas pictured at Trader Joes!)
  • 5 cups broth or water
  • ½ T thyme
  • lots of black pepper
  • ½ T salt
  • 1 package tempeh 
  • Several handfuls of kale or your preferred leaf
  • file powder*

Directions

  1. First, we will make the roux. You can use any type of fat and flour to make a roux, but I like the ease of using (and finding, no matter the land) canola oil and the extra nutrient boost and earthy flavor from chickpea flour.
  2. Over medium high heat, pour the oil into a big pot and let heat for a minute. Drop a pinch of flour in, and if it bubbles, whisk in the rest of the flour. 
  3. Continue stirring or whisking as it forms a paste. Be careful not to let it burn; constant attention is necessary. 
  4. Stir and cook for about 10 minutes. It should brown nicely. 
  5. Add the onions, celery, and carrots, and cook until very soft, a good 8-10 minutes. 
  6. Add the salt, pepper, and thyme, stir through.
  7. Then, add the okra, peppers, and broth or water and bring to a boil. Let it boil for a minute then lower it to medium heat, add the fava beans and kidney beans, and cover. Let it cook for about 20 minutes. 
  8. Meanwhile, get out a frying pan. Chop the tempeh into small bites and dry-fry it over medium high heat until it is nicely browned (probably 10-15 minutes, flip midway).  
  9. Make sure the okra is really soft like a baby’s bottom. Add the kale. 
  10. Once everything is really soft and yummy, add the tempeh into the pot. Let it rest on a low boil for at least 5 minutes so everything can get magical.
  11. *Add file powder to individual bowls, not to the pot, because this makes a ton and file powder gets wanky in stored leftovers, and apparently could also make the fresh gumbo too thick and somewhat stringy. Just sprinkle a dash on top of your bowl. 
  12. Enjoy!!!


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So many sources of protein especially the baby’s bottom!

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This is a roux a what a roux

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If you are fancy, you can call this mirepoix. But only if you’re fancy

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My new fave find

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Frozen 2: The Fava Beans

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Tempeh is the best food everrrrr

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Kalesss
I hope you make this or something like it, because gumbo is the shizzzzzz and I don’t just mean the school where Elphaba and Galinda met. What are your thoughts about what defines gumbo? Is it the okra? The roux? The use of file? The fact that you have to eat it with a top hat on while listening to Iko Iko Un-Day? Let me know! 

You know what, I’m gonna leave you with that song, because it is an even bigger part of New Orleans than gumbo…maybe. 

(Admission: We heard this song everywhere we went (playing restaurants, played outside by street performers, anywhere) and it took awhile before I realized I was not correct in singing “Hey now hey now hey now hey now, Iko Iko Un-day, Giacomo’s in pastry cup with a sugar bowl in his hand,” how I had sung it for like…my life. I guess I just have sugar on the brain always?)
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