Monday, December 24, 2012

Raw Vegan Christmas Candy

Celebrate your Raw Vegan Christmas with these Delicious Raw Vegan Christmas Candies


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Featuring delicious Caramels, Coconut Fondant, Chocolate covered Caramel, Chocolate covered Coconut fondant, pecan log, Caramel covered Coconut Fondant and Chocolate covered dried cherries!!
These delectable candies are made with whole foods and have a delicious, rich flavor without being over powered by excess sugar like most traditional Christmas candies.  If you want to celebrate a healthier Christmas holiday but still want to indulge in delicious candies these Raw Vegan Candies will certainly satisfy your craving!

I have been snacking on these candies throughout the holidays and they are so satisfying and delicious!  In fact, I made a vegan coconut fondant with organic powdered sugar, earth balance and coconut and could hardly eat it because it was so sugary, this coconut fondant however has a perfect flavor without the sugar sickness!

I have been without an oven now for about a month and it will not be fixed in time for Christmas so I have been trying to celebrate with non-baked confections and meals.  So far it has been okay but I don't think my kids are going to ever want to eat rice or pasta again!  Well, that may not be entirely true, but I never thought my daughter would ever get sick of pasta, she LOVES it!

She has been complaining that she doesn't want to eat pasta anymore, she is actually sick of it.  It has been quite a challenge and in fact, most of our dinners have been quite boring.  Steamed veggies and rice or  quesadillas with my cheese sauce and a salad simply because I haven't wanted to make anything else with rice or pasta or try to create yet another stove-top meal.

I know you can make curry and soups but my kids can't stand spice so curry isn't a good option and you can get sick of soup too :-)

Anyway, these delicious candies have made the Christmas holiday a bit brighter without my FAVORITE thing of the year......Christmas Cookies!




Raw Vegan Caramel Recipe



Raw Vegan Candy Chocolate




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How to make all the Raw Vegan Candies


Raw Vegan Chocolate covered caramels

Roll a small piece of caramel into a little ball, then flatten out a piece of chocolate in a 2 1/2 inch round and wrap it around the caramel.  Roll in your hands to make a uniform ball and then press a pecan half in the center if desired and then chill or leave out overnight to set.

Raw Vegan Pecan Log

Roll out a good size piece of the coconut fondant into a log, set aside.  Take a piece of the caramel and flatten it out in a rectangle shape that will easily wrap around your coconut fondant log.  Wrap the caramel around the coconut fondant and then roll in chopped pecans.

Caramels

Just roll into a ball and then slightly flatten and top with a pecan half

Chocolate covered dried cherries

You can either just wrap the cherries alone, or roll 3 cherries in a ball with some coconut fondant and then cover with chocolate whatever you prefer.

I take 3 dried, unsweetened cherries and wrap them with chocolate or roll them in a ball with the coconut fondant and then wrap them with the chocolate.

You can be creative, add your favorite nuts to the coconut fondant or make Raw Vegan Chocolate Turtles by making a design with 3 pecan halves, press a ball of caramel on top of them and then wrap it with the chocolate.

Have fun making a HUGE variety of raw vegan candies with these recipes!!

Friday, December 21, 2012

Vegan Chocolate Cherry Fudge Recipe

Vegan Chocolate Coconut Cherry Fudge Recipe



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Dark, rich and creamy fudge filled with dried cherries and coconut.  This is not your mama's fudge recipe!  I've never enjoyed fudge because it was sickeningly sweet, even for a kid who LOVED chocolate and dessert, fudge was, well.........disgusting!   I cannot understand who could stomach regular fudge, honestly it is so sugary you can't even taste the chocolate it induces and immediate sugar induced illness beyond all the sugar and candy of halloween in one bite!  

I decided to scrap the whole idea of trying to mimic traditional fudge and make my own delicious recipe without all that sugar!  I'm not saying this doesn't have some sugar but it is NOTHING compared to traditional fudge.   To me this fudge is actually enjoyable it has a delicious, rich chocolate flavor without being overpowered but milk or sugar.

I am still without an oven and so my holiday cookie recipe creation marathon had to be put on hold and it looks like now it'll have to wait until next year :-(

I did 'bake' some cookies in a skillet on the stove top just because I was craving cookies so bad I couldn't stand it....they turned out okay but nothing like a beautiful, crisp baked cookie.

I've been busy in the kitchen creating chocolate candies and raw desserts to keep up with my holiday recipe creation.  I just LOVE creating recipes during Christmas, even more than any other time of the year.  I hope you enjoy these two fudge recipes.



Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Ranch Chex Mix Recipe

Ranch Chex Mix Recipe


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What would the holidays be without Chex mix?  I have created this delicious, very flavorful cheesy ranch style chex mix.  This was a HUGE hit with my family, the kids couldn't stop eating it.  This recipe is definitely a kid friendly snack recipe.

You can change this recipe in a myriad of ways to suit your own taste

If you want to make this whole grain you can use wheat chex or another plain whole wheat cereal
You can use nuts and seeds
whole grain pretzels
whole wheat pita bread toasted
use your imagination..........


This post will be short and sweet because I just posted yesterday updating you on the christmas countdown recipes and why I am struggling with the cookie recipes......

Today, I'm just going to post this popular recipe for all your holiday parties or just for a fun snack all year round!

Ranch Chex Mix





Monday, December 10, 2012

Healthy Nutella Recipe and the Exploding Oven


My Exploding Oven......

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As soon as I decide to do a Holiday recipe creation marathon what happens??????  My oven begins having small explosions!!!

I decided to stop using it after we started smelling gas in the LIVING room while it was heating up for my holiday baking and the next thing we knew......BOOM!!

We had an oven repairman come today and he confirmed to me that the oven WAS in fact having small explosions, it WAS dangerous and I should NOT use the oven until it could be fixed!!  :-(

The parts are being ordered to fix the oven but who knows when they will come in and when the oven will be fixed so my holiday recipe creation will be on hold......I am sad :-(  I was really enjoying all the recipe creation lately!

Anway, maybe in a week or so I will be back to baking Christmas cookies and creating Christmas eve dinner recipes or New Years creations but for now it will be fudge and other stovetop confections.

It is not ALL bad news because I have created a healthy version of Nutella!!

Healthy, Vegan Nutella Recipe


Have I ever mentioned my lack of photography skills?  Well, if not this picture will certainly expose the truth.

Anyway, this is a rich, decadent Nutella style recipe featuring dates as the primary sweetener, NO dairy, NO refined sugars, and NO refined palm oil as the original recipe is loaded with!!!

You can make this like a chunky peanut butter style spread or you can process it until it is beautifully spreadable and smooth!  

My mother-in-law try as she might often feeds my kiddos things I don't necessarily approve of while they are at her house and Nutella is one of those things.  If it is chocolate my kids don't ask questions......they just eat it.

They came home RAVING about the nutella at Grammy's house and wanted me to buy them some.....they were pretty sad when I told them I would not buy it because it was extremely unhealthy, but I would create a recipe for them that they could enjoy that was not loaded with WHITE SUGAR!

They were pleasantly surprised with this little recipe I came up with and said that it satisfied their craving for Nutella.....SCORE!!!

I'm thinking of coming up with some Gluten Free, Vegan Frosted Animal Cookies.......

Would anyone be interested in that recipe......as soon as my oven is fixed????





Thursday, December 6, 2012

Vegan Apfelpfannkuchen or Hot Apple Cakes

Vegan Apfelpfannkuchen or Hot Apple Cakes


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Delicious, fluffy, hot pancakes layered with a delicious, sugar free apple pie filling!  This is breakfast heaven, without a sugar high!
My kids absolutely loved this breakfast, it was really fun to create and even more fun to eat.  You layer it and then slice it like a layered cake and serve.  Once served it didn't turn out quite as beautiful, but really......who needs food to be beautiful, it just needs to taste good!

I have been so busy creating Christmas recipes lately, it has been a lot of fun.  I am posting the most popular recipes and unfortunately, some recipes don't get enough 'Likes' to get posted.  I figured hey, why post ALL my recipes for free especially if they aren't popular so I decided to only post the ones that were the most popular.  

You can Like The Peaceful Kitchen on Facebook and join the fun  Click Here

A little EXPLODING Drama in the Kitchen!!!

Just what a cook does NOT want happening.......the oven being out of commission!!

We have a gas oven, in the beginning I was really enjoying it and started to get over my fear of using GAS for cooking.

I realized my FEAR of Gas ovens was NOT unfounded!!!

All the sudden my wonderful gas oven stopped heating up as quickly, in fact it was taking 15 minutes to get to 350.  I didn't think much of it until one day after the oven had been on for about 8-10 minutes and was STILL at 120 degrees I heard an Explosion!!!

As the days went on, when I would turn the oven on after several minutes the smell of gas would get stronger and stronger and then BAM it would explode. The last time I used the thing the explosion SHOOK the kitchen and scared my whole family!!!

I looked it up online and found out that this IS dangerous and it said DO NOT use the oven until it has been fixed.  Oh Joy, here I am in the middle of my Christmas cooking marathon and my oven is out of commission!!!  

We have been having sauteed veggies, stir fry, pasta.....anything I can cook on the stove....waiting for the oven to get fixed.   So I won't be creating any baked recipes anytime soon.  I am also reconsidering my idea that I like gas ovens better than electric....... these things are scary!!