Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Chocolate Chip Hummus

     I am such a nice daughter, I made a delicious (No Sugar) Cookie Dough Dip for mom's potluck, knowing I wouldn't be attending. As I said previously, me, mom and my sis are all scare performers and though we work at the same place, our scare areas are far apart. :( Anyway, this is not my own recipe. It is from my new favorite blog, Chocolate Covered Katie. Since starting my blog, I have been reading other great blogs to get inspiration and ideas and Katie's is my favorite so far. I don't want to steal so of course I must give credit where it is deserved. This dip was amazing! We served it with apple slices and graham crackers and I am told it was the talk of the terror tram. Mom even met another family of scare performers at the potluck. The mother was so happy because her daughter has an autoimmune disease and is allergic to nearly everything. So, she was very excited her daughter had an option to eat something that was both healthy and delicious.

      This recipe is mainly made with garbanzos, which is why I like to call it chocolate chip hummus, but you would never know it has garbanzos by the taste. The oats and vanilla disguise any bean flavor or texture it might otherwise have. Best part is, you can have your protein and your sweets at the same time and not feel guilty. I actually made mine with raw agave rather than dates (had no time to soak the dates) so mine did have sugar technically I also added a little extra vanilla because I love it. Personally I could have it as a meal but I'd probably eat it after a nice little salad since I like to have some raw veggies with every meal. Although dipping raw apple slices could be sufficient raw food intake. ;-) So anyway, now you're probably salivating so check out the blog: (No Sugar) Cookie Dough Dip

Btw- This is how I made it. It's a little different than her's.
Chocolate Chip Hummus
• 1 ½ cups chickpeas (1 can, drained) (250g)
• ¼ tsp salt
• ¼ tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• ¼ cup peanut butter 
• ¼ cup nondairy milk 
• ½ C raw agave or brown sugar
• ¼ C oats
• ½ cup chocolate chips

Add all ingredients (except for chocolate chips) to a blender or food processor, and blend until very smooth. Then stir in the chocolate chips and serve.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Trader Joe's Vegan 7 Layer Dip Recipe

I call this Trader Joe's Vegan 7 Layer Dip because everything came from TJ's and for the most part did not require a whole lot of effort. Here is the recipe:

1 can Trader Joe's fat-free Refried Beans
2 cloves garlic thinly sliced
olive oil

1 package TJ's soy chorizo

1 box/2 containers of Avocado's Number 1 Guacamole

1 container of TJ's Pico de Gallo Salsa

1 tub of TJ's "This Is Not A Tub of Cream Cheese, This Is a Tub of Non-Dairy Spread"
1-2 TBS lime Juice

Calamata Olives

1 chopped organic red pepper

First pour some olive oil into a pan large enough to cook your beans, add the garlic and saute until browned. Remove from heat and add the beans along with 1/2- 1cup filtered water and mix. Return to heat and cook until you reach your desired temp/consistency. Pour beans into a serving bowl. It will look pretty in a glass bowl.

Rinse pan and cook soy chorizo with a cup of water heat until water mostly boils out. Pour into bowl on top of the beans.

Next add the guacamole on top of the chorizo.

Then add the salsa.

Now mix the lemon juice together with the cream cheese. You may need to thin a little more with some water to reach a sour cream consistency then add on top of the salsa.

Take as many calamata olives as you like and slice in half. Toss in on top of the sour cream. You may also use black olives but calamata are my favorite so that's what I used. I didn't measure. I probably used about half the jar but I was eating them too. Just use as many as you think you will like.

The final layer is red pepper. You can saute them if you like but I prefer them raw. Just chop it up and toss them in and enjoy. I made this twice. Once after work at 4am which mom, sisters and I devoured quickly and once for my boyfriend. He's a meat eater and he loved it. Sorry there's no pic of the finished product. We were so tired and hungry, we just dove into the food. I'll update with a pic next time I make this. By the way, it tastes great served over a bed of lettuce or on top of TJ's organic white or blue corn tortilla chips.





Vegan Gluten-Free Mini Tiramisu (no baking required)

     I made lots of delicious food this weekend and I am so excited to share it with you. My mom, sis and I are working as performers for a very fun, scary theme park event for Halloween. We're apparently a scary family. It's so much fun to scare people, though it is very exhausting (I sound a bit evil but I promise these people getting scared seem to enjoy it so I feel good about it). We get through the long 12 hour nights by having potlucks and fun theme events. For example, this past weekend was 80s night in my group so I searched the web looking for a great idea for food to bring. I am an overachiever so I like to impress and amaze everyone at the potluck. I noticed the most often mentioned potluck idea was 7 layer dip so I considered bringing that but decided to go with a dessert as at our last potluck I made my delicious mac and cheese and several people mentioned they wished we had a decadent desert like cheesecake. So, I  ended up making the 7 layer dip for a snack at 4am after we all got home from work. It was really easy to throw together and mom, sis and I scarfed it down. Scaring works up quite an appetite!

     For my potluck, I chose to make vegan, gluten free mini tiramisu. I have made regular tiramisu before but I thought for convenience, mini tiramisu would easy for people to just grab and eat. Plus, I read that in the 80s there was a trend of making mini versions of various foods and that tiramisu was also trendy in the 80s due to mascarpone cheese being rather trendy. Anyway, here's the recipe. It's very simple and requires no baking which was important for this last weekend. By the way, I got all the ingredients from Trader Joe's and these went really fast at the potluck.


Vegan, Gluten-Free Mini Tiramisu
serves 24

2 8oz. tubs of Trader Joe's "This Is Not a Tub of Cream Cheese It Is a Tub of Non-Dairy Spread"
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 C vanilla non-dairy milk- I used Trader Joe's Vanilla Coconut milk beverage
1/2 C of raw turbinado sugar
1 tsp lemon or lime





2 boxes of gluten free Snickerdoodles
cupcake liners


1 C brewed coffee or espresso
1 TBS marsala wine or rum- I used marsala wine which is only about $3 from Trader Joes

First powder the raw turbinado sugar in the blender for about 1 minute.
Then pour non-dairy spread, vanilla extract, vanilla non-dairy milk, powdered, raw turbinado sugar and lemon or lime juice into a bowl, mix with a spatula and place in the refrigerator.

Brew the coffee or espresso and mix in the rum or wine. Immerse each snickerdoodle in the coffee/wine mixture and place cookie in cupcake liners. I recommend the foil cupcake liners as after a while the paper was becoming soggy and though it was still tasty I think it would be less of a struggle with the foil liners.



Next take your semi-sweet chocolate bar and grate it into a bowl. Set aside.

It's ok to eat a few squares, I did. :-)
Now place a couple spoonfuls of the non-dairy spread mixture on top of each cookie. I would guess it was roughly two tablespoons/cookie but I didn't measure. Then take the grated chocolate and sprinkle on top of your tiramisu and you're finished. Easy, right?