Lemon Bars

Lemon is my favorite flavoring for sweets, muffins, pies, cakes, or donuts. This is a my dairy free, gluten free, and vegan, verison of deliciousness.

Crust:

• 1 cup chopped walnuts
• 1/2 cup shredded coconut
• 1/2 oatmeal
• 1 1/2 tablespoons oil, plus extra for pan

Filling:

• 1 large lemon
• 4 tablespoons flax seed meal
• 3/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup melted butter substitute, I used Earth Balance
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup gluten free oatmeal

Topping:

• 1/4 cup powdered sugar 

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. In a small bowl place flax seed meal and water, mix and let this become gel like in texture
3. In food processor, combine walnuts, coconut, and  oatmeal. Process until crumbly, add oil.
4. Lightly oil bottom and sides of a 8×8 cake pan. Press crust into bottom of pan.
5. Wash and cut lemon into smaller pieces, remove stem and take out seeds. 
6. Process lemon alone in food processor, peel and all, (not the stem or seeds), scrape down sides. Add melted butter process to incorporate. Add flax mixture, oatmeal, vanilla and sugar. Process until combined.
7. Once the mixture is completed pour over crust, smooth filling evenly over crust.
8. Bake 35 - 40 minutes, the entire top should have become a big bubble sheet, it will cool flat, no worries, the edges should be starting to brown.
9. Let cool to room temperature, about an hour. Before serving sift powdered sugar on top, the bars will absorb the sugar. 
10. Enjoy!

Dark Chocolate Coconut Milk Caramels

I am in charge of buying candy when holidays come around, this is a nice perk for my husband, Steve, he is able to worry less about buying something that it turns out I cannot have.  This happened a few years ago, he bought what was a loving and thoughtful gift of candy, only to find out it made me ill, not all dark chocolates are dairy free. 

This recipe is what happens when your favorite caramels are $60 per 36 pieces, which isn't a horrible price, we have purchased these at least 4 times, they are really good. I just know that if I take the time, about 4 hours, I can make triple the amount for around $10. These freeze well, feel free to hide them in your freezer. If I can keep my paws off them, I have candy for holidays for the rest of the year.

Ingredients:

• 27.32oz of full fat coconut milk, two 13.66oz cans
• 2 1/4 cups of granulated sugar
• 1 cup maple syrup
• 3/4 cup water
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla 
• 8 - 10 oz dark chocolate, 85% cacao 
• Sea Salt

Directions:

1. Place a large sheet of parchment paper a 9x13 cake pan.
2. In a wide and tall pot attach candy thermometer, hovering off the bottom of the pan, my thermometer has a metal piece the keeps the thermometer off the bottom, super handy. I used a stock pot and it was more than big enough for this, if your pot is too small during cooking, turn off heat, use a larger pot, carefully moving contents to their new home.
3. Add coconut milk, sugar, maple syrup, water, and salt to pan.  Turn heat to medium high. With a long handled wooden spoon, stir mixture gently, combining ingredients.  The coconut milk fat will look like floating icebergs, once they melt it will look like watered down hot chocolate.
4. Stir occasionally to ensure the mixture is not burning to the bottom of the pan, boil until temperature reaches 240°F.  My batch took 25 minutes to get to 220°F, and another 5 minutes to get to 240°F.  During this time it changed from watery to thicker and more of a caramel color, this is when I feared burning candy on the bottom of the pan the most. You may even get small whiffs of burning caramel smell, I did, I was worried I had ruined my batch - not so - everything turned out fine.
5. Wait a few seconds, maybe 20 - 30 after 240°F before removing from heat, just don't let the mixture get too much hotter, try to stay under 245°F. I like a chewy caramel this kept these chewy and not super soft. I gave a good quick stir then turned off heat. 
6. Add vanilla, stirring to combine.  It will sizzle and smell wonderful.
7. Using a silicone spatula, quickly and carefully pour contents of pan into parchment lined cake pan. The caramels set rather quickly, if you take too long to scrape the pan out the caramels may have a discolored look and won't be uniform, I left the bulk of the pan scraping as bonus candies, I'll come back to that.
8. With the caramels in the cake pan cooling, gently level the pan out by slowly helping the caramels settle.  Set to cool somewhere on a kitchen towel - I left to cool on my counter but wanted to protect my counter from the residual heat. 
9. Let cool for at least 3 hours, pick up caramels using the parchment paper.  With a kitchen knife or shears cut caramels to size, I used both methods.  The blades will get coated with sugar and will dull, be ready to clean and dry blades.
10. In a ramekin, small Corning Wear baker or Pyrex glass bowl, add half of the chocolate bars.  Heat in microwave in 30 second intervals until melted, about 3 minutes.
11. Lay wax paper on a baking sheet that will fit in your fridge.
12. Using a fork drop one caramel at a time into the chocolate, flip to coat. While coated caramel is on fork, tap the inside of the chocolate bowl to gently ease off extra chocolate coating.  Then slide chocolate covered caramel on to wax paper to cool. 
13. Before chocolate sets add dusting of sea salt.  I would coat 3 - 5 pieces with chocolate then sea salt that small group.
14. Heat more chocolate as needed.
15. When the baking sheet is full, move to fridge to speed up chocolate setting. Lay out another sheet of waxed paper to continue chocolate coating; I needed two for this recipe.
16. Once chocolate coating is set, about 10 minutes in fridge, gently remove from waxed paper and store in container of choice.
17. I wrapped two groups of candies in freezer paper to keep in freezer for another time.  Chocolates have a 10 - 12 month freezer self life, just let them warm up at room temperature for a few hours before digging in.  
    

    

    It takes a long time to boil down - 30 minutes of gently stirring until I got to 240°F

    

    Salted and chewy caramels

    
    

    

    Happy Valentines Day!

Recipe adapted from: Every day vegan cooking

Cashew Cream Cheese

I am still amazed that cashews can replace my beloved cream cheese, but  it happened. This recipe is hands off time heavy, 24 hours just to soak the cashews, maybe 10 minutes hands on time followed by another 8 or more hours straining.  This is totally worth the time though, tangy, creamy, and delicious.  Printable recipe here.

• 2 cups cashews soaked 24 hours
• 1 packet True Lemon crystallized lemon
• 3 - 4 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• Tablespoons of water as needed
• 1 teaspoon agar agar powder
• 1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 - 2 teaspoons dried chives or green onion, optional

1. Set cashew in a medium size bowl, cover with cold water. Let stand for 24 hours.
2. In a colander drain cashews.
3. Place cashews in food processor or blender; add lemon, vinegar, agar agar powder, salt to taste, and water as needed. Process until smooth, 5 or so minutes.
4. Use cheese cloth or a coffee filter metal sieve over a bowl to remove excess water. 
5. Feel free to use plain or any additions you would like, I added dried green onions. 

Adapted from Healthful Pursuit 

 Setting up the coffee filters for straining

Fine mesh sieve over bowl

Coffee filters pulled together and tied closed

Coffee filter ball tied to wooden spoon and left to drain 

Baklava Roasted Walnuts

I love baklava; it was my favorite dessert to share after a trip to Greece in 2007.  I haven't made it in a few years because of dietary restrictions (wheat, butter, and honey - basically the most important ingredients to baklava).  This quick easy recipe has all the flavor of baklava without all the butter or time to make. You'll notice I also substituted maple syrup in place of honey - feel free to use honey if your diet allows it, however, I thought these tasted just like the baklava I remember. Printable recipe here.

Serves 8

• 2 cups walnut halves
• 1/4 cup sugar (or I have also used 1/8 cup sugar and 1/8 cup Splenda) 
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 
• 1 small pinch of salt
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 tablespoon butter or butter substitute (I used smart balance)
• 1 splash lemon juice, less than a teaspoon (optional)

1. In a medium sized bowl combine sugar, salt and cinnamon, set aside.
2. In a medium pot over medium heat bring water and maple syrup to a boil (if using lemon juice add here), stir in butter, add walnuts.  Stir gently until syrup mixture has become thickened and is coating the nuts.
3. Scrape coated walnuts into bowl of sugar mixture, stir to coat.
4. Lay coated nuts on to wax paper or silicone mat to cool.
5. Enjoy!  

Strawberry Banana Ice Cream

This is dairy free ice cream that is quickly and easily made in a food processor.  This is a fun way to have ice cream for breakfast, really all those fruits - go ahead, ice cream for breakfast is delicious.
Recipe serves about 3.  Printable recipe here.

• 3 bananas, frozen cut into 4-5 hunks each
• 6 large strawberries, fresh or mostly defrosted
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 tablespoon coconut cream*
• 1 tablespoon coconut milk*
• 1/4 cup sugar (optional)**

1. Place banana hunks into food processor, process until smooth, scraping down sides.
2. Add strawberries, vanilla, coconut cream, coconut milk, and sugar if using, pulse until combined.
3. Enjoy! Leftovers can be stored in freezer, it just won't be soft serve like, let it sit at room temperature for 5 or so minutes to soften up.

*My coconut milk always separates, if the coconut milk you have does not separate then just add 2 tablespoons coconut milk, no need to separate for this recipe.
* You can omit the coconut milk, but I like that it adds a little flavor depth and some creaminess to this.
**I think the recipe is sweet enough without sugar but feel free to add it if you want something sweeter.