I wanted to make oven fries since deep frying at home is pretty unsafe and I am sure I would set a small fire in my kitchen. At first, I was setting my oven a little too low for those really crispy fries that I wanted so be not afraid of cranking your oven up! Also it is important to make sure that you preheat your oven so the potatoes go into a hot oven to achieve maximum crispiness. You can omit the spice mixture and just use salt if you don’t like spicy foods. The milkshake is simple and unlike diner-style milkshakes, this one does not have any dairy or refined sugars. The salted peanut butter and chocolate combination is the best as any Reese’s cup lover would understand. The bananas make the milkshake thick and creamy. What would we vegans do without bananas?? What weird food combos do you love? 

4 recipes down, 26 more to go! See you tomorrow for Day 5: Best Sandwich Ever! Missed Day 3? Check it out here.

Stay connected on the daily by following me on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest.  Made this recipe? I would love to see it! Use the hashtag #screcipe on your social media. 

Day 4 Vegan MoFo: Salted PB Chocolate Shake

 

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Prep time

5 mins

Total time

5 mins

 

This sweet and salty milkshake is naturally sweetened with bananas and dates, has a touch of cacao, and big peanut butter taste. This recipe takes almost no time to make and satisfies a sweet tooth. This recipe is vegan, gluten free, soy free, and refined sugar free. This recipes makes about 3 cups of milkshake.

Author: Jessica DeMarra

Recipe type: Drinks

Cuisine: vegan, gluten free

Serves: 2

Ingredients

• Salted PB Chocolate Shake
• 1.5 cups unsweetened almond milk
• 2 frozen bananas
• 2 tablespoons roasted peanut butter (I buy unsalted)
• 1 tablespoon cacao powder
• 2 pitted Medjool dates
• 8-9 ice cubes (more if your bananas aren't frozen)

Instructions

1. Add all the ingredients to a high powered blender. Blend until smooth. Serve and enjoy!

3.3.3077

Day 4 Vegan MoFo: Spicy Oven Fries

 

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Prep time

5 mins

Cook time

30 mins

Total time

35 mins

 

Crispy fries in the oven are possible! Deep frying at home can be dangerous so opt for oven fries instead. These fries are made with russet potatoes since they have a high starch level which results in a crispier fry. They are seasoned with a spicy mixture of paprika, garlic powder, and ancho chili powder. If you don't like spice, feel free to omit the ancho. Served with the milkshake above or ketchup.

Author: Jessica DeMarra

Recipe type: Sides

Cuisine: vegan, gluten free

Serves: 2

Ingredients

• 2 large russet potatoes, washed and cut into fries (peels on)
• 1.5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• ½ teaspoon garlic powder
• ½ teaspoon fine grain sea salt
• ¼ teaspoon ancho chili powder

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. In a bowl, coat the cut potatoes with the oil, salt, and spices.
3. Transfer the potatoes to the baking sheet and spread them out into a single layer.
4. Bake for 30 minutes, flipping halfway through.
5. Remove from oven once they are golden and crispy. Depending on how thick you cut your fries, the cooking time will vary. After you flip them, keep an eye on them. No one likes burnt fries!!
6. Serve with the milkshake above or ketchup.

3.3.3077

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This is the big announcement part….

Moving forward, each recipe featured on Sprouts & Chocolate will be 12 ingredients or less! My archived recipes will remain on my site for you to access but any new recipe posted will follow this new rule. What counts as an ingredient? Any ingredient that isn’t water, salt or pepper.

I am excited to start this new chapter of my site and I hope you readers love these easy methods and ingredients! Within this eBook, there are over 15 vegan and gluten free summer recipes that don’t require an oven or stove PLUS are 12 ingredients or less. Recipes include:

Frozen PB+ Fudge Squares (on cover)

Rainbow Kale + Cabbage Slaw No-Cook Tomato Sauce over Zoodles Black Cherry Nice Cream Raspberry Swirl Cheesecake Pops This project was challenging but whenever I started to waiver, I remembered that any accomplishment started with trying. I feel a lot of us drown ourselves in the details of a project, creating long to-do lists and feeling defeated before we even started. I know I did with this eBook but I just looked at my list and started. Just start. The first thing I did was pick a topic, and from there, one by one, my tasks list became smaller. A person can only do one thing at a time, so pick your one thing and start today! You just have to try. 

You don’t have to do it alone. Two months ago, I knew nothing about creating an eBook so I reached out to fellow bloggers. With their experience, they become an invaluable source of information to me. I attended The Healthy Maven‘s How to Create an Ebook seminar and purchased Minimalist Baker‘s How to Publish and Sell Your eBook video tutorials. With these resources, I went from being technology-illiterate to creating my own eBook. A huge thanks to Minimalist Baker for creating the best and most comprehensive video tutorials. If you want to create your own eBook for your site, I highly recommend purchasing this tutorial package.

Crossing this goal off my list has made the unpleasant parts of this experience worth it. Yes, even that time I had to restart my entire eBook because my external drive wasn’t plugged in all the way. Each struggle I faced getting to my goal has made the accomplishment that much better.

So how do you get your FREE copy of Sprouts & Chocolate: Uncooked? Subscribe on the sidebar, confirm your address and you will receive an email on how to download it to your device at zero cost to you.

Thanks again to my readers for continuing to follow me throughout this experience! Here is to another year blogging! 

Sincerely,

Jessica DeMarra
Sprouts & Chocolate

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Makes ~4 cups

• 4 cups rolled oats (not instant and to make a gluten free option use certified gluten free oats)
• 1 cup chopped cooking dates
• 1 ½ cup water
• ½ teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 very ripe banana (must be spotty brown)
• 1/3 cup natural chunky peanut butter (I grind my own at a health food store- way cheaper than pre-packaged)

Preheat oven to 275 degrees and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. In a large bowl, measure out the oats and set it aside. In a medium saucepan, bring dates and water up to a boil over high heat, add salt and vanilla, turn down heat to medium-low and cover. Cook dates for 10 minutes until very soft, adding more water if necessary (1 tablespoon at a time). Add the dates and the rest of the ingredients to a blender or food processor and puree until very smooth. Add puree to oats and with a spatula mix until the oats are coated. Transfer coated oats to lined baking sheet and cook for 40 minutes, turning oats every 10 minutes. It will crisp up as it cools and you can break up the larger chunks with your hands. Serve with the non-dairy milk of your choice and some banana slices on top.

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These Chocolate Dipped PB Crispy squares are a perfect example of recipe failures turned into success with a little patience! I looked up a bunch of the traditional rice squares and noted a lot of powdered sugar and of course marshmallows. I did not want to take this route because vegan marshmallows are hard to find and some square recipes had up to 3 cups of powered sugar. Yikes! It makes my teeth hurt thinking about it. I turned to natural sugars in the form of pureed dates. Fail. Weirdly colored rice and it didn’t set at all. Just a big bowl of nada. I don’t know why I thought dates would work but now I know dates won’t work. I turned to liquid sweetener in the form of agave but it had a weird taste. I was about to give up entirely when I was looking through my copy of Forks over Knives cook book and notice they use a lot of brown rice syrup in their desserts. I had a jar of it in the back of my pantry that I had completely forgotten about so I pulled it out in one last attempt. To my delight the squares had set the way I wanted them too and tasted great. Brown rice syrup has a fairly neutral taste and I got my jar at Tutti Frutti in Kensington Market but I have seen it in most well stocked health food stores.

This recipe reminds me of part Crunch bar, part Reese’s cup, my two favourite Halloween treats. My sister and I had some serious negotiations when it came to our Halloween candy but we held on dearly to our Reese’s cups. My mother always hid our candy from us so we wouldn’t overdo it but every year one of us always found the bag. However there was a code to finding the bag: we always had to tell the other person where the bag was because if I was caught eating candy by my sister she would tell my mom and all the candy would be taken away so we snuck the candy together instead. Oh we thought we were so clever.

You can use less chocolate on the squares with a drizzle instead of a dunk in the chocolate (but really who likes less chocolate?)

 What is your favourite candy? Something you looked forward to or traded with a sibling? Leave comments below.

Right before posting this, Mark mentioned that he told his younger sister that the crunch in a Crunch bar are spider eggs so she would give him the chocolate bar to eat himself. To this day she will not eat a Crunch bar despite being told by countless people that they are not in fact spider eggs. I am dating a monster. Happy Halloween!

Chocolate Dipped Crispy PB Squares

Makes 12 squares

• 4 cups Rice Krispy Cereal*** (Or another rice cereal)
• 2 tablespoons salted roasted peanuts
• 1.5 tablespoons Earth Balance
• ¾ cup natural peanut butter
• ¾ brown rice syrup
• ½ teaspoon kosher salt
• 1-cup vegan chocolate chips or dark chocolate chips (I used Whole Foods 365 Brand)

In an 8×8 Pyrex dish create a sling with some overhang off each side with two pieces of parchment paper. Please do not skip this step; you will never get a square out if you do. Line a baking sheet with parchment or waxed paper. Place cereal in a large bowl and set aside. In a blender or food processor, pulse the roasted peanuts until a fine crumb and set aside.

Over medium heat in a small saucepan, combine the butters, syrup and salt. Whisk until very smooth and melted. Turn off heat and pour mixture onto the cereal. With a spatula fold in mixture until cereal is well coated. Transfer coated cereal to Pyrex dish and press into the pan using your fingers or spatula, spreading the mixture evenly over the dish. Place in freezer for 10 minutes. While the cereal is setting, melt in the chocolate in a double broiler (a stainless steel or glass bowl over a pot of barely simmering water work well). When the chocolate is just about melted take the bowl off the pot and stir until chocolate is completely smooth. Take the cereal out of the freezer and using the overhang from the sling lift the cereal from the dish. Cut into 12 squares and half dip in the melted chocolate, scraping any excess chocolate off the square with your finger. Set on lined baking sheet and sprinkle the peanut crumbs on the chocolate half.

Continue with the remaining squares and place in fridge until chocolate has hardened slightly, about 5 minutes. At this point the squares are semi frozen so you can bring it up to room temperature but they are still delicious this way too. Serve!

***According to this http://www.peta.org/living/vegetarian-living/breakfast.aspx Rice Krispies are vegan***

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