Valentine's

And Now For The Best Part... Dessert

No Bake Chocolate Fudge Cookies

Ingredients:

For the wet ingredients:

  • 3 tablespoons (45 mL) virgin coconut oil
  • 2 tablespoons (30 mL) sunflower seed butter
  • 1/4 cup (20 g) unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1/4 cup (60 mL) pure maple syrup, or to taste
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For the dry ingredients:

  • 7 tablespoons (50 g) gluten-free rolled oats
  • 6 tablespoons (35 g) unsweetened shredded coconut
  • 2 tablespoons (25 g) chia seeds
  • 1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt, or to taste

Directions:

  1. Line a large plate with parchment paper and set aside.
  2. In a medium pot, melt the coconut oil over low heat. Whisk in the sunflower seed butter, cocoa powder, and maple syrup until smooth. Remove the pot from the heat and whisk in the vanilla.
  3. Add the oats, coconut, chia seeds, and salt into the pot and stir well until combined. The mixture will be thick, dense, oily, and gel-like (from the chia seeds), but this is normal. Swear.
  4. Using a retractable ice cream scoop (approximately 2 tablespoons/30 mL) or simply a spoon, scoop the dough and place the mound onto the plate, leaving a bit of space between each cookie.
  5. Place the cookies in the freezer to set for about 10 to 15 minutes, until firm, or simply chill in the fridge if you have the patience.
  6. Store leftover cookies in an airtight container in the fridge for 1 week, or freeze them for up to 4 to 6 weeks. 

Recipe and photo courtesy of ohsheglows.com

Vegan Valentine's Day Dinner for Two

A special Valentine's Day Dinner made for two.

TOMATO ONION FLAXSEED BREAD

·  5 ripe Roma tomatoes
-   1 small red onion
-  3 cloves garlic
-  
¼ cup sundried tomatoes in olive oil and Italian herbs
-  ½ cup golden flaxseed meal

-  2 tablespoons brown rice flour
-  1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
-  
1 tablespoon tapioca starch
-  1 teaspoon onion powder
-  1 teaspoon garlic powder
-  1 teaspoon dried basil
-  1 teaspoon smoked paprika
-  ½ teaspoon Himalayan/sea salt

BABY SPINACH SALAD

-  2 cups baby spinach
-  
1 tablespoon pine nuts
-  1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
-  1 tablespoon lemon juice
-  
A few sprinkles Himalayan/sea salt
-  A few sprinkles freshly ground pepper

GRILLED BREADED TOFU STEAKS

-  ½ block firm or extra firm tofu
-  1 tablespoon low sodium soy sauce
-  1 teaspoon tomato paste
-  1 teaspoon miso paste
-  1 teaspoon sesame oil/extra light olive oil

-  ½ teaspoon pure maple syrup
-  ¼ cup high quality breadcrumbs

INSTRUCTIONS

TOMATO ONION FLAXSEED BREAD

1.  Preheat oven to 320°F (160°C).

2.  Chop the Roma tomatoes, red onion and garlic in relatively small pieces. They don’t have to be tiny but it will help with the chopping process.

3.  Put all the chopped vegetables and sundried tomatoes in the blender (or food processor) and pulse it briefly to chop it up. DO NOT PUREE IT! It’s important that if you’re using something like Vitamix, you pulse it for a second quickly, then stir, and pulse until most of the stuff is chopped but not a complete mush.

4.  Pour the mixture into a fine mesh sieve and squeeze out about a cup of juice. You can keep the juice in a container to use as broth for other things! (It will be a total waste to throw it out.)

5.  Pour the chunky mashed vegetables in a large bowl and add the flaxseed meal, brown rice flour, olive oil, onion powder, garlic powder, basil, paprika and salt. Stir until everything is well mixed.

6.  Align baking parchment paper on an 9×13 inch oven tray and grease the baking paper with non-stick cooking oil.

7.  Pour the mixture on the baking tray with parchment paper underneath, and spread it out across the entire tray, so the layer is nice and thin, and even.

8.  If you want the bread to be thin and crunchy, you will need to use a larger oven tray so the layer can be thinner. It will take shorter time to bake so you MUST check every 10 minutes or so after it’s been baking for 25 minutes, because the bottom may burn easily.

9.  Bake in the oven for 50 minutes to an hour and 15 minutes (depending on the thickness). Allow it to cool before cutting it up. Be careful though, some thinner parts may burn, so every 5 minutes or so after it’s been baking for 40 minutes.

BABY SPINACH SALAD

1. Add all the ingredients in a bowl and toss and turn it around until the spinach leaves is coated by everything pretty evenly.

GRILLED BREADED TOFU STEAKS

1. Cut half of a regular block of tofu out and squeeze out as much water as you can without breaking the tofu. Once water is squeezed, use some paper towels to get more water out from all sides.

2. Carefully cut the tofu block in three layers, then slice across to make 6 small rectangles. (But you can really cut them in any sized pieces you want). You will see that more water will emerge from the middle, so once again, get more paper towels to squeeze out even more water.

3. You may even want to leave it out for a little while to dry off. The more water you squeeze out, the better the outcome.

4. In a small bowl, mix together the soy sauce, tomato paste, miso paste, sesame or olive oil and maple syrup and stir until the sauce is even.

5. In a separate shallow dish, pour the breadcrumbs on it. I used Trader Joe’s.

6. Dip the tofu steaks in the sauce, then quickly coat them with breadcrumbs. Do this to each of the tofu steaks.

7. Spray some non-stick cooking oil on a ribbed grill pan and lay the tofu steaks neatly on the pan.

8. Turn the heat on medium high (between 5-6) and cook the tofu on one side for about 10-13 minutes until you see it brown, then flip it over as carefully as you can, and cook the other side for another 6-10 minutes until the other side has browned as well.

 Recipes and photos courtesy of Vegan Lifestyle Magazine