No Bake Granola Bars

I don't know why I have been putting off making these for so long. I guess I thought it was going to be a much more labor intensive process than it was. I mean, they're NO BAKE! Seriously, what was I thinking? Once again I am proven wrong by none other than myself.

I doubt the whole process took me any longer than 30-40 minutes. The only part that took the longest was pitting and chopping the damn dates. That was a pain in the ass. And so sticky. After I was done chopping, I felt like Clark Griswold in Christmas Vacation when his sap-laden hands stick to everything...

Little full, lotta sap.

Ready to see how incredibly simple these are to make? 1, 2, 4, GO

No Bake Granola Bars
Makes about 30 bars

2/3-1 C chopped nuts (peanuts, cashews, almonds, walnuts, pine nuts etc etc)
1 1/2 C oats
1/4 C flax seeds
1/2 C dried cranberries, or other dried fruit of your choosing
16-20 pitted and chopped dates
1/4 C honey
1/2 C oil
1/2 tsp salt
1 C nut butter

Combine all dry ingredients together in a mixer and mix until just incorporated.

While mixing, drizzle in the honey, oil and nut butter.

When all ingredients have combined nicely, turn out into a wax/parchment paper lined baking sheet.

Using a spatula, slowly spread out and firmly tamp down the mixture until it's an even layer, reaching all the way to the corners of the sheet.

Refrigerate for 2 hours. Cut into desired size; I used a pastry scraper to do this.

Store in an air-tight container, using wax paper to separate each layer.


Eat and enjoy with coffee or tea



The *only* problem I have with these is you have to keep them refrigerated until you're ready to eat them or they turn into a gooey granola mix basically, as handsome learned the hard way. I suspect it has to do with the extra creamy natural peanut butter I used, buuuut it was all I had on hand so I went with it. Next time I will try my standard sunflower seed butter and see if they fare any better. Because handsome wakes up at an undogly time of the morning (see what I did there?) and has to grab breakfast on the go, I really want these granola bars to stay in, ahem, bar form until he's ready to eat.

As I have added these to my weekly prep, I will be experimenting with different ingredients/methods and will update accordingly.

Until next time, cheers!

Homemade Sweet Potato and Quinoa Veggie Burgers

I'll be the first to say, these are some of the most delicious burgers I've ever had... and there's not a hint of meat or eggs to be found. Hell, I'll even stack them up against a cheeseburger any day. Okay, maybe not a *bacon* cheeseburger, but they're pretty damn delicious.

As with everything I've been making recently, I have tested and developed my own recipe for these delicious patties of heaven. Mostly out of necessity.But it's oddly satisfying going through the researching, looking up various ingredients, taking a piece from that recipe, an ingredient from this recipe, until I have something I think will pull together nicely.

The thing I love about this particular recipe is that it is so versatile, so much so I should really call them kitchen sink veggie burgers. I've swapped black beans for garbanzo beans, diced up leeks instead of onion, add extra or different peppers depending on how spicy I want them, throw in some diced mushrooms if I have any on hand, so on and so forth.

The first veggie recipe I ever made after we went vegetarian was... meh at best. The patties fell to pieces on the grill and we had basically veggie burger crumbles. The two patties that actually made it to the finish line didn't really win the race either. With every bite, more and more of the patty would ooze out on all sides of the bun. 

So I was determined to figure out why, and ended up making veggie burgers probably 4 more times after that over the course of 2 weeks. And surprisingly enough, we still like eating them! Handsome tells me this is by far his favorite version yet, so we're sticking with it. And look at how helpful he always is, I can't say no to that face! 

Sweet Potato & Quinoa Veggie Burgers

Makes about 10-12 patties

1 sweet potato, cooked and mashed

16oz (2 cups or one can) chickpeas, mashed

1 cup quinoa, cooked and strained of any excess water

1/2 onion, diced OR one bunch diced green onions

1 leek, diced

1/4-1/2 cup corn meal, panko or ground oats 

4-8 garlic cloves, diced

2-4 peppers, diced (anaheim, jalapeno, etc)

5-10 crimini or other mushroom, washed and diced

1-2 tsp nutritional yeast

2-3 Tbs coconut oil

To taste: salt and pepper

Pierce your sweet potato and put it in the over at 400 degrees for about an hour, rotating half way through. Even tho the recipe calls for one, I recommend making more than one at a time so you have cooked sweet potato ready to go for other recipes. 

Cook quinoa according to package instructions, usually 2 cups water to one cup (rinsed) quinoa, bring to a boil then simmer with a lid on for about 15 mins or until they have sprouted and the water is gone. Strain and let cool for a little bit.

If you're using canned beans, drain and rinse them. If you're using bulk beans, they will already need to be soaked, rinsed and cooked. Toss them in a blender and pulse until they're 'riced'.
Dice up your various other veggies: leeks, onions, peppers, garlic cloves, and whatever other veggies you'd like to add such as mushrooms if you have them on hand. Then dice up some variation of pepper, for us it's whatever we can pull from the garden or what friends bring over (anaheim, jalapeno, etc.). 

Add all this to your bowl or mixer and pulse once or twice. Add cup panko/cornmeal/ground oats, nutritional yeast, dash of salt and a few dashes black pepper. 

Mix together until it starts to stick together. If you're using a mixer, set it on the lowest setting and drizzle oil while it mixes. If you're mixing by hand, add 1 Tbs of oil at a time until it sticks together and has a nice smooth consistency.

Form your patties and place on a lined tray, cover and put in the fridge for an hour. Then store in an airtight container for up to a week, or freeze for, I don't know.. a while. They typically don't last long in our freezer so I couldn't tell you how long they keep in the freezer, but my adult logic tells me probably some time. 

When you're ready to cook them, either slap those puppies on a well oiled grill or a well oiled pan (preferably cast iron) for about 3 minutes each side, or until nice they're nice a crispy. Put that between two whole wheat buns and add your favorite toppings or condiments. I love using kale instead of lettuce because the warm burger will steam it and give you a nice texture. 

If you try these with different ingredients than listed above, let me know what you use and how it turns out! Thanks for stopping by, cheers!

Vegetarians Do It Better

Veggies. It's a love/hate relationship for most of Americans. Even though it's supposed to make up 60% of our diet and meat only a mere 5%, it's woefully the opposite. Meat and carbs overtake many the American meal, actually pretty much all of the meals a typical American eats. There's meat and bread in every single meal we consume, because we've been groomed to eat that way for so long. Sure, we KNOW that fruits and veggies are good for us and we are supposed to eat 3-5 servings a day, but they rarely make it on the plate. Or when they do, they're usually drenched in butter, cheese, sauce, or processed to hell so none of the original nutrients actually make it to your plate or body.

I can go on and on about my personal belief and anger over the food industry, marketing scare tactics and absolute misinformation about what constitutes a healthy diet, but I don't want to be on my soap box that long.

I'm not one of those people that hates veggies; I really never had a problem clearing my plate when I was growing up. I absolutely love veggies. The colors. The variety. The uniqueness. The artistic structure, inside and out. The only problem was I haven't been getting enough of them in recent years, probably for a very long time. As a typical American getting sucked into the typical American diet, my meat to veg ration was horribly skewed. I knew I needed to start making changes, and I did, very small ones over the course of a number of years.

I switched from white to wheat, from olive to grape oil, packaged/quick food to making my own, bringing my own coffee and lunches for work. Several years ago I stopped eating fast food (except on those ridiculously late, drunken Taco Bell runs when I'm starving and don't care how much processed cheese product I shove into my mouth).

Recently, handsome and I watched a documentary on Netflix that really opened our eyes and thrust us into a completely new lifestyle. It was chance thing that led us to make an easy choice to go vegetarian. I know what you might say about the nature of humans to get all gung-ho and motivated after they see/watch/read something only to fizzle out after a few days because of our inherited short attention spans. But this lifestyle change, while radical to many, was actually one of the easier changes I've made. I don't miss the taste of meat and the last time I had a bite of something with hamburger in it, I didn't care for it.

Handsome pointed out the other day that he feels like he can taste the veggie flavor more than ever before and it's completely true. No longer are our veggies sauteed in ground turkey drippings or slathered in meat sauce. The true veggie flavor comes through in all our dishes and I can't believe we've been missing out on this taste for so long. It just reinforces the fact that I love cooking, now more than ever. It's been fun as hell trying so many new recipes or variations of old recipes. In fact, most of the time I find myself creating my own recipe based on what we have on hand, something I've always wanted to do but never had the confidence.

Even though we are just two people, I feel satisfied that we are doing our small part to reduce our footprint, save forests, conserve water, prevent our own high blood pressure and cholesterol, and lose a little weight along the way. And I am so excited for us to continue this journey together, learning and experimenting with new things along the way.