Recipes, projects & products that don’t suck.

I kept seeing this recipe all over Pinterest. That ooey-gooey, melty chocolate photo finally got the best of me and I decided to see if these grain-free little devils tasted as good as they looked. Unfortunately, I noticed that there have been a few other bloggers who have made this recipe, then stolen the original photo, which they posted to Pinterest with a link to their own blog. Dude, that’s not cool. Don’t do that. That’s stealing. Post your own photos. I finally tracked down the original recipe source (or at least it appears to be the original source). In any case, I’m so glad I found the Texanerin Baking blog because the blog author, Erin, has some mad baking skills. There are loads of…

Yikes. An entire week flew by without a single post. I can assure you it’s not because I was lazy. I don’t feel like I got that much done, but I sure feel like I was busy. Between design projects, dentist/doctor appointments, a million errands/tasks, book club, testing recipes, learning about food photography, getting my car fixed, cleaning up the pieces of our former garbage container that some idiot blew to pieces while he was probably texting just before he did a 180 and went into the ditch backwards (no one was hurt) and re-training the dogs to use the porta-potty in the garage so I don’t have to clean massive clumps of snow off them multiple times a day (don’t judge) – well, there…

In my last post, I wrote about the vegan Artichoke Spinach Dip I was going to bring to a holiday party. We went to the party on Saturday and no one there knew I was vegan or that I brought a vegan dish. They must have liked the dip because there was barely any left at the end of the night! I also went to a holiday party on Friday night and brought vegan, gluten-free banana bread. This, too, went over very well. Personally, I LOVED it. I found the recipe on Gluten-Free-Vegan-Girl, a blog written by a very smart, beautiful 17-year-old girl in Norway whose English is far better than most Americans’. Solveig just started her blog in June of this year (same as me!)…

You had me at chocolate. And peanut butter. And the no-bake factor is always a plus. And they are gluten-free, to boot. When I found this recipe on Vegan Heartland, I couldn’t wait to try it. I was surprised to find that I had all of the ingredients on hand (if you’re vegan, you probably do, too). As Matthew (Vegan Heartland author) notes in his recipe post, these crunchy, sweet bars are rich in protein, fiber, antioxidants + omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. But don’t think that means you can eat the whole pan, cuz short on calories they are not. Nor are they short on flavor or texture. I LOVE ‘em!!! These are super easy and quick to make. The hard part is waiting…

It’s not often that I make anything from a box anymore. However, I found a cookie mix at my local health food store that I had to try. It’s a Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix made by Purely Elizabeth. This is what got me – it’s gluten-free, vegan and free of refined sugar. Oh, and the box is cute. I’m a sucker for good design. The ingredients are:  organic millet flour, organic coconut palm sugar, chocolate chips (evaporated cane juice, chocolate liquor, non-dairy cocoa butter), organic almond flour, garbanzo fava bean flour, organic chia seeds, baking soda, sea salt. Can’t go wrong with that. The package says 24 servings, but I must have made my cookies too big cuz I came out with 20. Assuming you make…