Graham Cracker Bar

I made a graham cracker bar for dessert for my family, and they all loved it!  G said it wasn't mustache-friendly, but that didn't stop him from chowing down.  I made this once before, but it was a few years ago.  The response was so positive, we'll have to do this again sooner rather than later.  You can look for Nabisco Original graham crackers for a vegan choice, or my store (Raley's) has their own chocolate graham, which is vegan.  Either way, everyone got to top their crackers just the way they wanted them, and it was fun to boot!

 Graham Cracker Bar:  Chocolate graham crackers (Raley's brand), homemade chocolate and vanilla frostings, vegan chocolate chips, two type of sugar crystals and white sprinkles, shredded sweetened coconut, bananas and strawberries.  The crackers had corn syrup, and the pink sugar crystals had coloring; other than that everything else was natural and free of colors and artificial flavors.

Here are my two crackers and my quota of sweetness for a month!  On the left, a cracker is smothered with chocolate frosting and has bananas and strawberries and white sprinkles.  On the right, a cracker is smothered with vanilla frosting and has coconut, chocolate chips and more white sprinkles.  Flossing is a must to get rid of those sugar bugs!

Graham Cracker Bar

Ingredients:

Vegan Graham Crackers
Various toppings - We used: 
Homemade chocolate frosting
Homemade vanilla frosting
Vegan chocolate chips
Pink sugar crystals
Blue sugar crystals
White non-pareil sprinkles
Shredded, sweetened coconut
Chopped bananas
Chopped strawberries

Directions:

Lay everything out in a fun, accessible way.  Grab a cracker, and get going!  Feeds five hungry vegans in this house!  Yum.

Snowy Bananas and Strawberries

Here is a very simple salad to welcome those warmer days, and one in which we can also reap the sweet harvest of strawberries already at our Farmer's Markets.  Enjoy!

Snowy Bananas and Strawberries

Ingredients:

3 bananas, sliced into rings
3 cups of coarsely chopped, fresh strawberries
1 cup of shredded, sweetened coconut

Directions:

Toss all the ingredients together right before serving.  Enjoy right away.  Feeds five hungry vegans.  So satisfying!

Patriotic Salad and Fourth of July, 2013

I know, I know, I know, I said I was going to get all my reviews and award out first...but, this is a timely recipe, and I just had to squeeze this one in.  On the Fourth of July, my mom and I decided to just serve up four salads.  She made three bean salad and coleslaw, and I made my Kids Love It! Potato Salad, which will be featured in my next review (hint, hint) and a fruit salad.  The fruit salad was going to have tons of different kinds of fruits in it, but I started putting berries in the bowl first, and then I added a few bananas, and then something struck my eye.  No, it wasn't a wayward blueberry; it was the look of the salad: it was red, white, and blue.  Hello?!  This was the Fourth of July, by golly, so I just to had leave it as is.  And, yes, I can tell you, that I made a big deal of it at my parents'.  "Hey, did anybody notice the colors?"  "Isn't it great that this salad is red, white, and blue?"  I ignored JK's comments that the blackberries were black; they look dark blue to me, humph.  "I know what!  I'm going to call this my Patriotic Salad, yes!"  Yes, indeed, I was very proud of myself, and you should be too.  Er, I mean, it's pretty, isn't it?

Patriotic Salad

Ingredients:

1 cup raspberries
1 cup blackberries
1 and 1/2 cups blueberries
2 and 1/2 cups strawberries, halved or quartered
3 bananas, sliced

Directions:

Make sure all the berries are rinsed and drained well.  Put all the fruit in a large bowl and gently toss.  Refrigerate for at least one hour.  Try to finish in one evening; it does not save well.  Feeds five hungry vegans and a Grannyma and a Poppy.

Double Creamy Fruit Salad and Christmas, 2012!

Yes, I know, I'm barely squeezing my Christmas post in before the end of the year!  But, I'm just glad to be doing it.  I have been disgustingly sick for three weeks, and am carving out a spot of energy to do this post.  Actually, without GR and G, Christmas wouldn't have been the same.  GR baked all of our cookies and the Happy Birthday, Jesus, cake, set up the tree and its lights, and decorated inside and out.  She is my Christmas-loving girl - remember her bedroom?  And, G somehow made our tired out carpets look new with his obsessive vacuuming.  Thank you, both!  As usual, my parents came over for breakfast, and we also had two extra guests this year, so it was really nice to get that extra help.

Also, as usual, we had a dinner potluck with the larger, extended family, and I decided to make a salad I veganized from a gathering a long time ago.  When I was in college, I belonged to an environmental club, and at one of our potlucks, a guy brought this simple unnamed fruit salad that had this amazing dressing on top.  It was such a great group, and he was such a cool guy.  He was actually the first person to give me an article on how animals raised for food are treated: it was a one-page article with a photo of a veal calf.  That was the first meat I gave up.  I tried once in high school to become veg but didn't stick with it.  Anyhow, I have saved that weathered article all these years because it was so life-changing for me.  So, that was the guy, and that was his salad dressing, but it was dairy-based.  He didn't seem to really measure anything, I was chatting with him as he  basically just plopped stuff in a bowl, but I've gone strict and offered measurements.  I know some of this fruit isn't in its proper season, but it still tasted great.  Maybe he'll see this and rub his chin with the memory.

The rest of our day's food went like this:

Breakfast:

Our first gingerbread house
Cookies by GR:  Tiger Balls, Chocolate Chip, Holiday Cookies
Happy Birthday, Jesus, cake by GR
Chocolate hearts by GR
Loaded Cinnamon Rolls
Breakfast Potato Skillet
Sausage and Cheese Muffins
Chips
Amazing fruit platter by my mom (unpictured)
Juices, Hot Cider and Coffee

Dinner:

I brought:
Double Creamy Fruit Salad
Tofurky

We also could eat:
Green salad
Rolls
Baked Beans - recipe passed down for generations
3 types of cookies and an apple pie
No complaints here!

On with the pics and recipe.  Have a HAPPY NEW YEAR!  My goal is to definitely amp up my postings.  Hopefully, all the craziness and sickness are behind us now.

Our first gingerbread house!  GR and I mainly did this with JK's little hands "helping" as he could.  GR was surprisingly bossy with this thing.  It was a blast to make it with her.

Our breakfast table.  The fruit platter didn't make the shot.  All was delicious, of course.  :-)

These didn't make the earlier shot either.  GR made these chocolate hearts for us.

Our annual trek to the fire station to deliver cookies.  I love our station and all it's crews!  GR's cookies are being held by the firefighter standing next to SR.  JK's in front with some new Christmas wrestlers, GR's wearing her new Big Bang Theory shirt, SR's wearing her new Christmas dress, and she'll be getting that cast off in a couple of weeks.

A serving of Double Creamy Fruit salad.  A white dressing, in a white bowl on my mom's white counter wasn't the greatest combination, but trust me, this is so good.

Double Creamy Fruit Salad

Ingredients:

Can be flexible here.  Use several cups of your favorite fruits.  I used:

1 pineapple, chopped
2 Fuji apples, cored and chopped
2 bananas, sliced
1 cup of blueberries

Dressing:
1 cup vegan sour cream
1 cup vegan vanilla ice cream

Directions:

Put all fruit in a large bowl.  Ten minutes before serving, take out the ice cream from the freezer and set on the counter.  After ten minutes, add the dressing ingredients to the bowl of fruit and gently fold in.  Do not stir with a hard hand.  You don't want the dressing to become liquidy.  Keep it creamy and billowy.  Serve immediately.  So good you won't believe it.  It's a nice twist on the standard fruit salad.  Feeds five hungry vegans and more!

Fresh Summer Fruit Salad

We make a lot of fruit salads, and the summer seems to offer such a wonderful variety of natural sugary goodness.  This is an example of one of the salads I made a few weeks back, when the fruit was still at its most flavorful.  I added a bit of coconut and raisins for some extra variety.  I served this with some of my homemade rolls .  It makes for a nice lunch or a light dinner. 

Fresh Summer Fruit Salad

Ingredients:

1/4 of a large watermelon, approximately four cups, chopped
1 cantaloupe, seeded, cut away from rind and chopped
2 mangoes, diced   * See tip below on how to prepare a mango
2 bananas, sliced
1 nectarine, chopped
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1 small snack box of raisins, approximately 1/4 cup

Directions:

Put all ingredients in a large bowl.  Gently toss together and serve immediately.  Feeds five hungry vegans.

* There are two ways that I have found the easiest to get at the succulent mango.  One is to peel the ripe fruit with a paring knife.  Once you get the peel going, it is easy to just grasp ahold with your fingers and pull it off the fruit.  Once the fruit is peeled, you can take a larger knife and slice the two wide halves of the mango away from the fibrous pit inside.  Then you can go around the edges and slice away any large chunks of mango still attached to the pit.  Anything left over but too small to cut off, can munched on directly.  Just wash your hands afterwards.  The second way is to leave the peel on and slice away the wide halves like above.  With the fruit still in the detached peel, you take your knife and carve cubes into the mango.  Then, laying the peel flat, carefully slice under the mango cubes, releasing them from the peel.  For the remainder of the mango still attached to the pit, you may do the same or peel and cut away as in the first option.  One of these choices should appeal to you more than the other.  Either way, don't let the fact that you have to work a little harder deter you from getting at a fresh mango.  They are worth it!