Vegan "Snickers"!!

I've been neglectful of this blog lately (sorry!) but have been writing more for our House Party blog. But, I just made an awesome creation I had to share. First of all, let me explain that Snickers has pretty much been my favorite candy bar and once I became vegan a few months ago, I may have cheated once or twice to eat a Snickers (that hungry? why wait? slogan got me!)

The GOOD news is that I just whipped together a super quick "Snickers"-like treat that satisfies the chocolaty/sweet/salty/chewy bliss of a Snickers.

Ingredients:

• 2 medjool dates (3 if you want to be naughty!)
• handful of chopped nuts (I used cashews in this case but peanuts would be closer to an actual Snickers)
• handful of dairy-free semi-sweet chocolate chips (I used Trader Joe's)

Instructions:

1. Slit the dates lengthwise (but don't cut all the way through, just enough to open it up).
2. Remove the pit and the little hard thing at the end.
3. Fill each date with chopped nuts (push them into the walls of the dates if you can) and pinch it closed (it's ok if some nuts are falling out)
4. Melt the chocolate in a ramekin if you have one or any small microwave safe dish or mug (30 sec, stir, then 30 more sec)
5. Dunk the dates in the melted chocolate.
6. Eat OR wrap in saran wrap and pop into the freezer, then let it thaw just a little when you're ready to eat it.

Yummy! This pretty much made my night. :)

Happy Friday! Let me know how you like it. Sorry no original pics right now, but I'll try to update later (for now, it should turn out looking kind of like this pic below, courtesy of imperialgardens.com. It's not that pretty but it sure tastes good! Oh, they're gluten-free too.

Happy New Year, Bring on 2012!

It's a new year and we all know what that means - time for resolutions! I like to look at it more as goals, and lots of them. It's OK if you don't completely reach them by midnight on 12/31/12 - as long as you give it your best and stay positive throughout the year, and accomplish SOMETHING you can be proud of, I think that's the most rewarding. So instead of making resolutions "that are meant to be broken", make goals that are meant to be striven for (pretty sure striven isn't a word, but it is now!)


Anywho, with that said, one of my goals is to pick up photography. I plan to invest in a decent camera, the kind that makes even poop look fantastic with all it's fancy filters and special lighting settings etc. My dad's main hobby was photography and I'm thinking it could be in our family genes. And YOU will reap the benefits. Sorry to say I've been relying mostly on my iphone camera (NO flash!) for most of my posts so far, which partly explains my lack of posting. Once I get a pro-grade camera, my pics will look more like THIS quality:

I want to post things I'm proud of! So, bear with me in the meantime with my juvenile cell phone pics and lower grade Canon powershot pics. In the meantime, hopefully you can enjoy the content even though it's not as pretty as I'd like it to be...yet.


With that said, another one of my resolutions is getting to bed earlier! I've been a night owl all my life but it wears down on me sometimes. Good night and sweet dreams :)