Tag Archives: vegan

Funky Monkey Vegan “Ice Cream” Pie

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Do you like pie?

What a silly question, everyone likes pie.  I know there may be some preference as to the pie variety, but I challenge you to show me someone who hates all pies.  And this is a pie for the masses, vegan or otherwise.

This recipe started rolling around in my head a few months ago, but I made myself wait for Vegan Month to take it from the figurative tip of my tongue to my literal plate.  You guys know how much I like Ben and Jerry’s, right?  Well when I’m not eating Ben and Jerry’s ice cream I tend to peruse their flavors page like a desperate stalker on restraining order.  And from there the idea started knocking around in my head.  What if Chubby Hubby and Chunky Monkey had a little rolly-polly baby.  A peanut butter-pretzel-banana pie baby?  With cinnamon for good measure?

I can tell you now what happens.  You devour that pie baby.

I’m certainly not the first person to add peanut butter to the banana soft serve recipe that took the blog world by storm.  But I’m pretty sure I’m the first person to serve it in a pie.

It was a good idea.  An idea I strongly suggest you try on your own.

Peanut Butter Banana Pretzel Pie, serves 8

  • 2 cups pretzels
  • 1/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 1/2 cup vegan butter substitute
  • 4 medium bananas, frozen
  • 1/4 cup vanilla almond milk (if using a plain milk substitute just add 1 tsp each vanilla extract and sugar)
  • 3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
  • 2 tsp cinnamon
  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Farenheit.
  2. Place unwrapped butter in the center of a 9-inch pie pan and put in preheating oven until butter is fully melted.
  3. Place pretzels into the bowl of the food processor and process until smooth, 30 seconds to 1 minute.  Add sugar to bowl and pulse a few times until combined.
  4. When butter has melted, pour the crushed pretzels into the center of the pie pan.  Mix the crumbs and melted butter, then use your fingertips to gently push onto the bottom and up the sides of the pan.
  5. Bake crust 10 – 12 minutes until firm.  Set aside to cool for at least 15 minutes.
  6. Wipe out food processor (it doesn’t matter if a few pretzel crumbs get in your filling) and place bananas and almond milk into the bowl.  Process 2 – 3 minutes until smooth, scraping down the sides as needed.
  7. Add peanut butter and cinnamon to bowl and process 20 – 40 seconds more until well-combined.
  8. Pour filling into cooled pretzel crust, using a spatula to spread it in an even layer.
  9. Place pie in the freezer to firm up for 1 hour.  You can make and freeze the pie a few days ahead of time if you like, just be sure to place in the fridge to thaw for 30 minutes before serving.

Peanut Butter Practice

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It’s been a good weekend!  Good food, good fun, good friends.  Not much activity on the school-work front, but we’ve got a 4-day weekend coming up next week so it was hard to motivate myself.  Plus Friday’s 3am session of book reading hit me pretty hard.

I’m so glad I did it though, this was the first book club where we all finished reading on time and we finally got to talk about the book!  So much fun.  I wasn’t an English major/teacher for nothing, I love analyzing literature.

The food wasn’t bad either.  Janessa made vegan 7-layer bars.

And Anna brought this big bowl of fresh fruit that pretty much had my hand planted in it all evening.

My offering fit both the dessert and fruit categories; peanut butter pretzel banana pie.

It got good reviews all around and I’m excited to share the recipe with y’all tomorrow.  But that could have been the booze talking too.

Lemonade, club soda, and Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka (to fit with the book!).  I had that glass x2.

I got home after midnight and was very excited both to get in bed and stay in bed late this morning.

Breakfast was a toasted onion bagel with SmartBalance Light.

Plus a cup of lemonade and club soda.

I left the vodka out today, but had that glass x2.

Today was another round of fancy lunch and easy dinner.  Lunch was healthy, vegan, and included a new recipe to boot.

Roasted French green beans,

pearled barley,

and Smokey Maple Baked Beans.

The beans weren’t quite Southern bbq good, but for quick and vegan I’d say they’re pretty great.  Here’s a link to the recipe.

While Adam and I watched “Grey’s” this afternoon I ate this bowl of popcorn x2.

And then headed to yoga on a full belly.  90 minutes of hot yoga will make you wish you’d done more water and less salt.  This class was the very last practice of my 30-day pass and I’m pretty devastated.  I’ve come to enjoy yoga so much more than I ever thought possible.  I’m still not very good, but every shaky, sweaty minute is filled with glee.

I picked Adam up for a “cookie walk” and we came home with peanut butter cups from the Co-op.

It was good but I wish it had been a bit smaller, even this sugar fiend couldn’t finish her serving.

Dinner was peanut butter laced too.

I promise that bowl was as tasty as the picture is crappy.

Into the skillet with evoo went leftover pasta, leftover (pre-cooked) yellow squash and broccoli, and my peanut sauce.  The noodles get all crispy when you stir-fry them and the sauce forms a crust that’s pure heaven.

Now it’s back to the grind.  Hopefully this weekend of play has left me rejuvinated for work!

Do you love to read?  Do you enjoy discussing the things you’ve read, or would you rather not analyze them?

Let It All Out

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Question first – What is currently stressing you out?  Think about it and really let it out in the comments, you’ll feel (a little) better!

I want to apologize for the on-again-off-again blogging schedule of late.  I also want to be honest with you guys about the fact that I’m having a hard time.  There’s not necessarily one big thing that’s bothering me, but there are a lot of little things that are adding up.  I am 80% sure that I believe in fate, and I am 110% that I believe that any seemingly negative thing you go through leads you to a better place.  But it’s still hard not to get a little freaked out by all the questions I have about the future.

Where will we have to move for Adam’s residency?  What if Adam doesn’t get a residency?  What if Adam’s chosen career means he’s away all the time and I’m lonely?  Should we have kids?  When should we have kids?  Should I get pregnant next year so if that I don’t get a job right away when we move I’ll get to be home with the kid until it’s all sorted out?  Should I wait to have kids until I’m established in my job?  How do women with full-time jobs breast feed?  How do you make an impression at your job if you excuse yourself every hour to pump and are also already 28 years old and starting out in a brand new field?  What if I can’t find a job?  What if the career path I’m on isn’t the one I want?  What do I want to do with my life?

And to be honest, the above questions are only a snapshot of all the things I’ve been worrying about.  It’s hard not to feel a little defeated when I can’t do anything proactive (at the moment) to answer those questions.  Sometimes you just have to have hope/faith/optimism and wait it out.

Sometimes – like last night – you have to eat a veggie sub and a bucket of french fries and sit on the couch watching old episodes of “Family Guy.”  But then the next morning you have to do your hair and put on your comfy-yet-sexy shoes.

So that’s what I did!

And in my comfy-yet-sexy shoes, I drove to school early and made my way through a big stack of school work.  I haven’t stopped working since, and bit by bit, I haven’t stopped feeling a little better, a little more in control.

The theme for my meals today was – late.  Breakfast was at 10, lunch was at 5, and dinner was at 9.  My late breakfast was eaten in the computer lab while I worked.

Holy frick I love reusing containers so much  I over-served Adam’s lunches for this week so that reused cheese container held a half serving he’d left behind.  In the mix was penne pasta, roasted zucchini and yellow squash, sautéed mushrooms, spinach, diced tomatoes, marinara sauce, and a drizzle of olive oil.

It was yumtastic; I’ve been a good wife this week!

Also helping me get back my happy, clinic went really well this afternoon.  We are starting to do SOAP notes and learning more about what RDs actually do helps a lot to relieve my anxiety.  Plus, I screened patient who agreed to do another round of diabetic diet education.  I can’t really say much about clinic (thanks HIPPA), but so far all of my patients have been really nice.

When we got back to campus it was time for late lunch.

Not cottage cheese*, another reusable.  *I may not have been eating a very healthy diet lately but I have been sticking to the vegan challenge at least.  And no soda for another 3 days either.

In the container were leftovers from Monday’s dinner; brown rice, roasted broccoli, and Asian Orange Tofu Bake.

Continuing the citrus theme, I had a navel orange.

And a piece of dark chocolate for dessert.

When we got out of class at 8 I drove a friend home and then hurried to make dinner.

Purple grapes.

And a Sandwich Thin with mustard, roasted garlic hummus, and 4 oz of raw tempeh.

I wasn’t expecting much but this sandwich was goo-ood.

This post took me awhile to write, but it felt good to put it all out there.  Thanks for “listening,” seriously.  I’ve got a low-sodium diet education presentation tomorrow and I’m still riding a productivity high so I’ll probably burn the midnight oil today.

Hope everyone is having a good week!

Tropical Tapioca Panacea

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I love hot yoga but it’s a pain in the neck, literally.  I felt fine on Monday night, just like I might have pushed my back a little too far, and fine all through the day on Tuesday.  But then when I got home from clinic last night I was so sore I could barely move.  I’m not sure why I took so long to feel the pain, but it came on strong.  Even today I still feel pretty awful!

Breakfast was a serving of Quaker Oatmeal Squares with Silk Unsweetened Almond Milk.

Plus a naval orange for vitamin C.

I’ve got my first test of the semester this afternoon and I am not feeling ready.  Fingers crossed!

For lunch I packed a jam jar of one of this weekend’s kitchen efforts, Tropical Tapioca Pudding.

This pudding was inspired by the great vegan tapioca pudding you used to be able to get at the co-op.  I think my version is pretty great too.  The pudding has the perfect balance of chew and cream and the bananas are little pillowy clouds floating throughout!

Tropical Tapioca Pudding, serves 4

  • 1/2 cup small-pearl tapioca
  • 13.66 oz can light coconut milk (aka 1 and 2/3 cup)
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 2 medium bananas, sliced
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla
  1. Place tapioca in a bowl with enough warm water to cover completely and soak for two hours.
  2. After 2 hours, drain tapioca.
  3. Combine coconut milk, sugar, salt, and drained tapioca in a small pot over medium-low heat.
  4. Cook for 15 minutes, stirring constantly.
  5. Add banana slices to the pot and cook another 5 minutes, stirring carefully.  Cook until tapioca are translucent.
  6. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.
  7. Move to a covered container and cool in the fridge for 1 hour before serving.

Have you ever tried tapioca pudding?  What about boba (large pearl tapioca that are placed in cold drinks and sucked up through a special straw)?

A Round Meal

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Breakfast was very well rounded.

A serving each of Multigrain Cheerios o’s, All Bran Bran Buds balls, and Wegman’s Berry Corn Crunch spheres.

With Silk Unsweetened Almond Milk poured on top.

The flavors and textures in the mix rounded out nicely, with good ratios of sweet to bran and crunch to puff.

Lunch – a very early lunch because of Statistics and clinic – was served in a round bowl and on a round bagel.

In the bowl was dinner leftovers; roasted broccoli and two slices of Asian Orange Tofu Bake.

On the bagel was SmartBalance Light and homemade strawberry jam.

The berries in the jam came straight from my uncle’s mom’s farm.

I think we’ll get more one-on-one time with patients at clinic today, I hope I’m not a square, or too obtuse!

Monday Felt More Super Than Sunday

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Hello, work week!  Did you watch the Super Bowl yesterday?  Were you happy with the outcome?  I will admit to not watching a single minute.  And in fact, Adam and I were a bit under the weather this weekend and did not eat or do a single thing worth mentioning!  Today I’ve managed to get almost back on track and eat some good food.

I had an orthodontist appointment early this morning; nope, I’m still not done with retainers.  My plan was to drive straight to school from there but after two parking lots worth of circling there were still no spots to be found.  Instead I drove to Wegmans and banged out a bunch of work at their comfy booths.  Plus I got a coffee for fuel.

With soy milk and 2 sugars.

My coffee was paired with breakfast from home.  A Coconut Chocolate Chip Clif Bar.

and a baggie of purple seedless grapes.

Curious about my nails?  They are pink glitter French tips!

They aren’t perfect but I did them free-hand so I’m pretty darn proud.

I did work at Wegmans, drove home, walked to school, did work at school, went to class, did work at school, got picked up by Adam, and ended up back at Wegmans for a late lunch.

Some lo mein with a piece of lemon pepper tofu and 1.5 vegan meatballs.

Veggies (mostly mushrooms and carrots with a few green beans).

This hit the spot.

Dinner took a while to cook (you can only fit two trays in our oven at a time) so we arrived home from the store we got right to work on the next meal.

My plate had 1/4 cup of sweet brown rice,

pieces of my Asian Orange Tofu Bake,

and roasted broccoli.

Everything was delicious!  The sauce on the rice and veggies is leftover tofu marinade that I cooked down quickly in the rice pot.  The tofu recipe is from way back in 2009.  I made it again to update the recipe page, still good!

After dinner I managed to drag myself to an 8pm hot yoga class.  Woot!  90 minutes of hot yoga felt so dang good!  I haven’t gone to many classes on this 30-day pass, but I’ve cherished every minute I’ve gotten.

On The Hook

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It’s Friday; two weeks of school are officially done and over with!  And 2 days of Vegan Month in, I realize I need to figure out a new eating plan.  Now that our larders are stocked it should be easier, but I’ve been waiting too long to eat and eating way too much.  Not good.

Due to a looming bedtime and the sheer mass of (uninteresting) food, I’ll keep this quick.  Coconut water was consumed during class.

This Jumanji apple wasn’t quite as exciting as its name, but it was sweet and good.

With 2 Tbsp of peanut butter.  Plus a ridiculous amount of peanut butter (3-4 Tbsp?!) eaten straight from the jar.

This Amy’s Rice Macaroni with Dairy-Free Cheese was good.

The cheese was by far the best vegan cheese you could hope for (it was good even on the just cheese scale, without the vegan modifier!).  But I wish I could find the vegan but not also gluten-free version, because I bet it’d be better.

The rice pasta was a little bit gummy.

Jordan Almonds (x2) were consumed for taste-testing purposes.

If you like Jordan almonds then I have got the recipe coming for you!  I’m baking this weekend and hope to post early next week.

Vegan jerky.

A bagel with SmartBalance Light.

An Earl Gray with soy milk during a monster-shopping trip.

A Red Hood Winter Hook was split with Adam when we got home.

And a big bowl of popcorn (with SmartBalance Light) was consumed while watching “Grey’s.”

Holy crap carbs.  I think I’m going to spend tomorrow embracing produce!

Peachy Keen

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Hello, hello!  We’ve reached Friday without me grabbing a diet coke and/or ice cream cone out of a stranger’s hand, I call that a successful week!  Yesterday went well, I did indeed get in bed early – I stayed up pretty late finishing the 10th Temperance Brennan book, but at least I was in bed.

This morning’s breakfast was peachy keen.

But I miss my cottage cheese, this bowl was so hot!  (Hence the foggy photos.)

My scorching spoonfuls contained –

  • 3/4 cup (frozen, thawed) peaches
  • 2/3 cup water and 1/3 cup Silk Vanilla Almond Milk
  • 1/3 cup oats
  • ~2 tsp chia seeds
  • a liberal sprinkle of brown sugar

It was delicious, though I do admit that I’m greatly looking forward to trying a peaches with cottage cheese oatmeal bowl when this month is over!

I’d love it if more of you guys would go back and tell me something about yourself!