gluten free

[Recipe] Tofu Fresh Rolls with Creamy Peanut Sauce

1 Comment

Just around the corner from our house is this great Vietnamese restaurant that has my favorite tofu fresh rolls. They are inexpensive, delicious, filling and served with a creamy peanut dipping sauce. The thing is while it is right around the corner it just isn’t a spot we go to often since we have shifted our focus back to eating more meals at home.

Well today my craving for these fresh rolls hit me hard and lucky for me I had picked up a package of rice paper wrappers at the Asian market a few weeks ago and I had filling ingredients as well. The one thing I didn’t have was peanut butter to make my dipping sauce but I did have a bag of roasted peanuts in my pantry – so homemade peanut butter to the rescue! 

Tofu Fresh Rolls with Creamy Peanut Sauce

Peanut Sauce:

  • 2 cups roasted and unsalted peanuts
  • 2 tablespoons tamari
  • 2 tablespoons coconut aminos
  • 1 teaspoon coconut nectar or sweetener of your choice
  • Juice of 1 lime
  • 1/3-2/3 cup water
  • 2 garlic cloves
  • 1 tsp – 1tbsp sambal olek (optional)

Rolls:

  • Rice Paper Wrappers
  • Rice Vermicelli Noodles, cooked and rinsed with cold water
  • Smoked or Baked Tofu, julienned
  • Bell Pepper, julienned
  • Purple Cabbage, shredded
  • Carrots, julienned
  • Baby Spinach
  • Other great add-ins:
  • Cilantro
  • Mint
  • Basil
  • Scallions
  • Bean Sprouts

Instructions

Sauce:

  • Start by blending the peanuts in a high speed blender or food processor until smooth; this will take a few minutes and you will want to scrape down the sides as you go.
  • Add remaining sauce ingredients and blend until smooth. Season with salt and pepper to taste. You may decide to add more water depending on how thick you would like your sauce.

Assemble:

  • Soften your rice paper wrapper based on package directions. Place on a clean kitchen towel and then add your favorite filling ingredients. Tip: make sure not to over fill your wrapper or it will split when you roll. Once filled roll up by folding the sides over first and then fold over the top and gently roll up.
  • Serve with peanut sauce for dipping

Who knew it was so easy to make your own peanut butter? It made a super creamy and incredible sauce. I omitted the sambal olek for my kids but added a big dollop to my sauce before devouring.

// What is a dish that you love to order out and could easily make at home? 

 

Shop This Post

This post contains affiliate links. Purchases you make through these links will help fund the work I do here at no extra cost to you. Thank you sincerely for your constant support.

Loving Earth Chocolate Banana Bread Donuts

4 Comments

Is it doughnuts or donuts? Whatever it is I love them. Powdered, cinnamon sugar, jelly filled, blueberry basil – I love them all. What I don’t love is the sugar hangover that they often give me so they are a treat that I have a few times a year, usually when we bring out of town guests to Blue Star Donuts.

But I have good news! Amazing news! Delicious news!

I have found a doughnut that tastes great, free of refined sugar and you can eat as many as you want without getting that awful sugar hangover. You might even call them healthy or at least healthier plus they are covered in some amazing chocolate that it is Loving Earth’s vegan chocolate bars are free of sugar, dairy, gluten and grain.

Banana Bread Donuts

Inspired by The Little Plantation 

Note: I used a scale to weigh my flour, sugar and chocolate chips based on the measurements from the original recipe. Pssst these doughnuts are also gluten free! 

Ingredients

FOR THE DONUTS

  • 185g gluten-free pastry flour (I used Jovial**)
  • ⅔ tsp baking powder
  • 75g coconut sugar
  • 35g vegan chocolate chips
  • 2 Tbsp coconut oil, melted (+ extra for greasing the doughnut tin)
  • 1.5 tablespoons ground flax seeds + 4.5 tablespoons water
  • 1.5 very ripe bananas, mashed
  • 1/3 cup vanilla vegan yogurt

FOR THE TOPPING

Method

  • Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease the circles of your doughnut pan with coconut oil and set aside.
  • In a large bowl, mix together all the dry ingredients – the flour, baking powder and sugar until nicely combined. Add the chocolate chips and mix in well. Set aside.
  • combine the ground flax seeds with the water in a small bowl and let rest for 5 minutes.
  • Over a very low heat, melt the coconut oil.  
  • In a small bowl mix together the melted coconut oil, the mashed bananas, the yogurt and the water/flax seed mixture; stir to combine.
  • Add the wet ingredients to the bowl of dry ingredients and mix until just combined. 
  • Spoon the mixture into a piping bag and pipe circles of dough into the prepared doughnut pan. Spread evenly. Bake for 13 minutes or until golden brown.
  • Remove from the oven and allow to cool.
  • While the donuts are cooling, prepare the glaze by melting the chocolate in a double boiler or simply a bowl placed over a pan with water that’s been gently brought to the boil. Do not microwave the chocolate or it may burn.
  • Once the donuts have cooled down, dip them in the chocolate glaze and top with coconut chips.

I recommend eating these donuts right away or store them in the fridge. If you and/or your family is anything like me and mine these won’t last more than a day anyways.

Now I need to get my hands on some  Loving Earth Caramel Chocolate so I can make these Salted Caramel Donuts.

**Found on ThriveMarket.com – receive 25% off your first order via my link.

[Recipe] Individual Italian Plum Crumble | V+GF

17 Comments

Italian Plums

I think my favorite time of the year to visit the farmers market is just at the end of summer when it starts to get a bit cooler and the produce is starting to change to apples and squash and you get the last of the summer fruits. This week the littles and I headed to the Hollywood Farmers Market and we found ourselves coming home with an abundance of fruit including some beautiful fresh and dried Italian plums.

Italian Plums-5

While I could have just left them alone and enjoyed snacking on them throughout the week I had a craving for some really yum crumble. I didn’t want anything to sweet or heavy, just a really light crumble that highlighted these delicious Italian plums. Since I find that plums and almonds are fantastic together I thought let’s break out the almond meal for this one and along with a few other ingredients a delicious crumble was formed. Italian Plums-3

Italian Plum Crumble
Write a review
Save Recipe
Print
Filling
  1. 10-12 Italian plums, pitted and sliced
  2. 2 tablespoons coconut sugar
  3. 1 teaspoon vanilla
Topping
  1. 3 tablespoons coconut sugar
  2. 2 tablespoons gluten free rolled oats
  3. 4 tablespoons almond meal
  4. 3 tablespoons coconut oil
Instructions
  1. Pre-heat oven to 375F
  2. Toss the plums with the coconut sugar and vanilla and evenly fill six lined muffin cups.
  3. Stir together the coconut sugar, oats and almond meal. Add in the coconut oil and crumble together.
  4. Top each of the plum cups with the crumble topping.
  5. Place in the oven and bake for 20-22 minutes until lightly browned.
  6. Allow to cool for at least 10 minutes before enjoying. Serve with your favorite vanilla frozen dessert.
Naturally Lindsay http://3.232.172.97/

Italian Plums-2

 

Of course no crumble is complete without some vanilla “ice cream” with it. Especially when the crumble is still warm enough to melt the ice cream as you eat it and you end up with this creamy sauce at the end that you could just drink up. Needless to say with the help of my parents all of the crumbles are gone and I’m hoping that this Saturday there will be more Italian plums for me to make this crumble again. Screen Shot 2015-09-08 at 7.06.29 AM

Crazy Sexy Cleanse: Day 1

3 Comments

Well we are finishing up Day 1 of the Crazy Sexy Cleanse and so far things are going well. Neil struggled a little this morning without his normal coffee ritual and to be honest I could have used a cup myself but instead with both had a mug of Infuse Your Mood Tea, a lemon water with cayenne and a big green juice (makes one quart: one bunch dino kale, half bunch curly kale, one gala apple and half a mini melon.)

As part of the cleanse and my goal of getting back to my fitness Edie and I got out for a 30 minute walk this morning.  I pushed her in the BOB which added a little something extra to the walk- sheesh it is so much tougher to walk when you have to push around a stroller, a baby and a car seat!

After our walk and nursing session I was feeling hungry so I decided to have a few slices of millet bread with avocado, a sprinkle of sea salt and nutritional yeast.

Lunch consisted of leftover quinoa salad (quinoa, cherry tomatoes, parsley, green onions, cucumber and a homemade dijon-balsamic vinaigrette), a big glob of lemon dill hummus and leftover roasted veggies.  It was tasty but not too photogenic so I decided to nix the photo.

For an afternoon snack I had a fig COCOMOJOE bar which was absolutely delicious and I am quickly becoming addicted to all of the flavors!

Dinner was the highlight of the day- I made two recipes from Crazy Sexy Diet, the teriyaki tofu and the hemp cabbage salad.  I knew that the tofu would be good but I was skeptical about the salad and to my surprise it was actually really good and the perfect pairing with the tofu.

One day down 20 more to go!

Today on Naturally Family I talk about my first official day as a stay-at-home/work-at-home mom.

Review: Pure Sweets

1 Comment

Pure Sweets is an organic, gluten-free, vegan, kosher bakery in Philly.  A few months ago I contacted them about doing a review and the sent me a few items to try which include one of their crisp bars –The Ladybug, a flourless cookie- The Ape, a trio of mini macaroons- The Poodle  and a bag of trail mix- The Camel. Neil and I enjoyed everything so much that we ended up placing an order for a few more goodies for ourselves and an order of mini macaroons for our babyshower.

For ourselves we ordered:

  • The Kitty: Organic citrus cardamom cookies made with organic citrus fruit. We both really loved the flavor of these cookies but unfortunately they didn’t travel so well and ended up having a strange consistency.  I blame the heat and humidity we have been having here.
  • The Kid:  Organic brown rice crisp bar topped with organic peanut butter, organic blackberry preserves from Italy and organic single-origin dark chocolate. After loving The Ladybug we had to order another crisp bar and let me tell you that this one was even better! Neil and I both wished we had ordered two because it was really hard to share (we fought over the last bite).
  • The Bat: Organic single-origin chocolate macaroons peppered with organic cayenne. This was one of my favorite macaroons.  It was chocolately with just a mild hit of spice.
  • The Sphinx:  Organic rosewater cardamom macaroons. These macaroons were really great, such an interesting flavor.  We both really liked them but after trying a number of other flavors at the shower they ddin’t end up being a favorite of ours.  Tip: Crumble and add to vanilla coconut yogurt with sliced strawberries- so good!
   
   

For the shower we ordered:

  • The Sphinx:  Organic rosewater cardamom macaroons.
  • The Elephant: Organic cashew butter macaroons with organic caramelized nuts. This was my favorite of all the macaroons that I tried.  The caramelized nuts really made this so delicious.  I plan on ordering more of these soon!
  • The Owl: Organic salted almond vanilla bean macaroons. This one was good but you can get it dipped in chocolate and I think that would have made it even better.
  • The Panda: Organic single-origin chocolate chunk macaroons. I didn’t actually get to try this one (sad face) but Neil did and he absolutely loved it!
  • The Poodle: Organic lemon lavender macaroons.(I just checked my order and this one must have been snuck in by the good people at Pure Sweets) These are my second favorite ( The Elephant being my first) of all the macaroons. The lemon and lavender is such a great combination.
Pure Sweets photo shoot at our baby shower featuring father-to-be Neil and our friend Laura
   

Other things I love about Pure Sweets:

  • They donate 5% of their profits to charity.
  • The “bonus” details that are included with their products–> example The Poodle: Bonus: immune booster, 60 calories per macaroon.
  • Their products are organic, vegan, gluten free and kosher.
  • They have an amazing and personable staff to work with.
  • I also love that they offer gift boxes and wedding and other favors.
Disclosure: I purchased the reviewed items from Pure Sweets. All opinions are honest and my own.
__________________________________________
If you haven’t stop over to our family blog, Naturally Family, then head over now and Meet The Family.  We have been discussing this weeks pregnancy ups and downs, our baby bucket list and my labor and deliver fears.

CSA Week 2: Garlic Scape Pesto Pasta & a Hail Merry!

10 Comments

Neil and I decided (very) last minute that we would partake in the Pete’s Greens CSA again this summer since we love their produce. Last week was the first pick up because we were away we ended up giving away most of it except the potatoes and garlic scapes that we had for our camping breakfast. This week we received:

  • Bag of Mesclun Greens
  • Beet Greens
  • Napa Cabbage
  • Sweet Salad Turnips
  • Garlic Scapes
  • Scallions
  • Zucchini
  • Easter Egg Radishes
  • Sage
  • Potatoes

Tonight is the first of many meals using these amazing organic and local ingredients. Enjoy- I know we did!


Garlic Scape Pesto Pasta with Zucchini

Yields 4 servings

Takes about 30 minutes total to make

Ingredients:

  • Garlic Scape Pesto
    • 1 cup raw walnut pieces
    • 1 bunch of garlic scapes (about 1 to 3/4 cup), chopped
    • 4 cups basil leaves
    • 2/3 cup olive oil
    • 1t salt
    • 1T sesame seeds
    • 2T nutritional yeast

Place the walnuts and garlic scapes in the bowl of a food processor and process until small crumble. Add in the basil leaves, turn the processor on low and slowly stream in the olive oil through the feed tube. Add in the salt, sesame seeds and nutritional yeast; process to combine.

  • Sauteed Zucchini
    • 2 medium zucchini, sliced into half moons
    • Cooking Spray
    • 1/2t salt
    • 1/4t black pepper
    • 1/2t garlic powder
    • 1t nutritional yeast

Heat a large saute pan over medium-high heat.  Spray with cooking spray and toss in the zucchini and saute for 3-4 minutes just until they start to lightly brown.  Stir in the salt, pepper, garlic powder and nutritional yeast; cook for 2 more minutes.

  • 4 servings of pasta of your choice

In a large bowl toss the pasta, zucchini and 1/4 to 1/3 of the pesto together.  Serve warm, room temp or cold!

The pesto makes a lot more than you need for this dish so place any extra in a jar top with a layer of olive oil and seal tightly.  Store in the freezer until you need it again.  To defrost move from the freezer to the fridge 8 hours before using.

For dessert we shared one of these wonderful vegan, raw, gluten free tarts from Hail Merry.

It was one of the best desserts I have ever tried and I am looking forward to picking up the other 3 flavors over the next month.  It was so rich and the perfect balance of creamy chocolate, cookie crust and almond butter center- to die for.

On the 1st Day of…

75 Comments

Welcome to the start of 12 Days of Giveaways! I hope you are as excited as I am about this years special event.  There will be at least one giveaways each day so keep your eyes peeled for multiple giveaways in a day.  Today is the beginning and to get us started will be a giveaway from Amy’s Kitchen.

Amy’s Kitchen provided me with the following goodies to review for this giveaway:

One of the great things about Amy’s products is that they are great when you are in a pinch and need to have food for entertaining.  I ended up bringing both the pizza and the chocolate cake with us to my Grandma’s when we celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving.  The pizza was one of the personal sized ones and we baked it, cut it up and served it as an appetizer.  It was a great hit! The flavor was wonderful.

We enjoyed the cake for dessert; we sprinkled the top with a little powdered sugar and served.  I really loved it and wish we had thought to serve it was raspberries or strawberries because the combination of the fudgey cake and sweet-tart fruit would have been so delicious.

My cake fell apart a bit oops!

Amy's personal sized pizza's are also great for a light lunch or dinner. The Hubz and I split the second pizza for lunch one day with a simple salad.

For the giveaway the winner will be provided with  how three Free Product Coupons — good for any Amy’s item, including all frozen items (retail value = $30), plus a nice Amy’s canvas shopping tote.

The Winner is Natalie – A Hint Of Cinnamon


TO ENTER: This giveaway is open until December 2nd at 6am. This giveaway is open to U.S.  Residents.

1. Visit the Amy’s site and tell me your favorite product. (required)

Additional Chances to win (PLEASE LEAVE A SEPARATE COMMENT FOR EACH ENTRY; also if you already do any of these ie. follow me on twitter/facebook, ect it counts so leave a comment).

  1. Like Amy’s on Facebook
  2. Tweet about this giveaway “I want to win @cookveganlover #amyskitchen Giveaway http://wp.me/pFVWo-1ii“
  3. Like Cook.Vegan.Lover. on Facebook.