Cucumber and Soba Noodle Salad with Spicy Peanut Dressing

By Elizabeth Beals

    This is a light and refreshing meal that you can spice up or mellow down to your preference. I tend to make it in the spring and summer for lunch a lot. It will help if you have a mandolin in your kitchen to make quick work of the cucumber. If not, it will be a great time to practice your knife skills.

 Peanut sauce:

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup boiling water

2 tablespoons plum vinegar or rice vinegar

1 tablespoons beet sugar or sweetener of choice

4 garlic cloves, minced

crushed red peppers, to taste

2 teaspoons lemon juice

Sriracha or chili sauce of choice to taste

Noodles:

One cucumber, thinly Julienned (aprox the size and shape of the soba noodles)

soba noodles (make sure they are GF, some have wheat flour in them so read your labels)

1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped

1/4 cup peanuts, chopped

1. Combine the peanut butter with the boiling water and mix together.

2. Then add the rest of your sauce ingredients together and let it cool.

3. Cook your soba noodles, they won’t take but a few mins. Rinse them with cold water and drain.

4. Mix the cucumber and soba noodles in a bowl with as much or as little sauce as you would like.

5. Garnish with fresh basil and chopped peanuts. Add more Sriracha if you need more of a kick. 

Nuts over Bananas…mini "ice cream" sandwiches

by: Elizabeth Beals

   If you have been following our posts you see that we are nuts over bananas and peanut butter. In the world of vegan cooking, bananas are a wonderful tool to create many different treats and eats. From smoothies, to muffins, and even ice cream can all be made using this amazing fruit. Add peanut butter with the bananas and you have a real treat! This is a no bake dessert, a food processor and freezer are all you will need.

Step 6 In the freezer

Ready to eat

   My desirer was to create a dessert that was healthy, but would satisfy my sweet tooth at the same time. Ice cream sandwiches were a favorite of mine growing up, like many people I know. I hope you try and enjoy my own take on this classic dessert.

Ingredients:

Raw dough

8 dates, soaked in warm water to soften with seeds removed

1/2 cup unbleached raw almonds

1/8 cup pecans

1/8 cup raisins 

1 tablespoon flax seed

Ice Cream Filling

1 banana, sliced

1 teaspoon peanut butter per sandwich

Wrapper

mini muffin tin papers

Tools or special equipment 

food processor 

mini muffin tin paper

Preparation and procedures 

1. Remove the seeds and soak dates in warm water to soften them. Only for a few minutes if soft already.
2. Pulse the almonds in the food processor until you have very small pieces, but don’t over process them or you will have almond butter. Take your almond pieces out and set them aside.
3. Drain the dates and pulse them in the processor until you have a date paste.
4. Add back the almond pieces and all the other dough ingredients to the date paste and pulse together. In 30 seconds or so you will have a sticky dough. It will come together in a ball and when that happens, your dough is done.
5. Take 1 teaspoon of the dough and with your thumb press it down in the muffin paper.
6. Layer 1 sliced banana on top and spoon 1 teaspoon of peanut butter on top of the sliced banana. Place in freezer for 30 minutes.
7. The peanut butter should be semi hard after 30 minutes in the freezer. Take them out and top off your sandwich with another teaspoon of dough. Press lightly down to flatten the dough.
8. Place back in the freezer for 20 minutes. Pull out of the freeze a minute or two before eating.

Cacao, PB2, Banana Muffins

By: Genevieve Melzer

I am notorious for eating green bananas, I like my bananas right as they turn from green to yellow. So I always buy them when they are green so they will be perfect to eat in a day or so, but sometimes I buy too many and as soon as they get any sort of brown spots on them I just don’t want to eat them.

I have a few recipes in my repertoire that involve brown or super ripe bananas but I wanted to make something new. I had 3 overly ripe bananas so I looked in my pantry and two ingredients jumped out at me immediately. The cacao powder and the PB2 (a peanut butter protein powder), I then realized what I was going to make… cacao, peanut butter, banana muffins.

I recently purchased PB2 and am obsessed with it; it is a peanut butter protein powder but doesn’t have any weird additives. It packs 5g of protein in 2 tablespoons and has 85% less fat calories than traditional peanut butter. I have been using it in all my protein smoothies and thought I should see what it’s like to bake with.

You will need:

3 bananas (very ripe)
3 tablespoons coconut sugar
3 tablespoons cacao powder, unsweetened (can use cocoa powder instead)
3 tablespoons of PB2, peanut butter protein powder (can use peanut butter or almond butter instead)
½ tablespoon of vanilla extract
4 tablespoons of earth balance butter
¾ cup of Gluten-Free All Purpose Flour (I used Bob’s Red Mill brand)
Pinch of sea salt

Note: The peanut butter taste is not very pronounced from the PB2, you can add more if you like.

1. Preheat the oven at 350 degrees and place muffin cup liners into muffin baking pan.
2. In a large bowl, combine banana, coconut sugar, cacao powder, PB2, vanilla extract and earth balance. Mash together until the consistency of the mixture is like that of pudding.
3. Slowly stir in the flour and add the salt. Mix together.
4. When the batter is mixed together completely scoop heaping tablespoonfuls into individual muffin cup liners.
5. This recipe should make one dozen (12 muffins) bake for 20-30 minutes, test for doneness by sticking a toothpick in the middle of one of the muffins, if it comes out clean the muffins are done.
6. Let cool for 10 minutes, serve and enjoy!

BEWARE! These muffins are yummy and once you eat one you will want to eat a few more. They are smaller than regular muffins and have only good ingredients in them so feel free to indulge yourself.

The shelf life of these muffins is around 3 or 4 days if you don’t eat them all before that. Mine only lasted two days because I was all about eating them and so was my man.