Cheesecake, mmm

B.V. (before veganism), I was a huge fan of cheesecake, a.k.a. saturated fat + sugar + more sugar + more fat + dairy + eggs = slow death.  Hahahha.  My favorite was chocolate chip peanut butter cookie dough cheesecake from, yes, The Cheesecake Factory.  Where else would they create such a ridiculous combo??

With my history in cheesecake, I was very leery of vegan "cheesecake".  Why bother if it contains practically none of the same ingredients??  So I never truly considered making one.  Enter Hy-Vee's sale on raspberries, combined with my husband's adoration for raspberry cheesecake.  Hmm.

Since I have Alicia Silverstone's The Kind Diet, I decided to have a go at the Mixed Berry Cheesecake on page 192.  The two main ingredients are silken tofu and nondairy cream cheese.  Bonus, it's only sweetened by 1/4 cup of pure maple syrup.  I added the fresh raspberries to the top, and we were all shocked to discover how delicious and cheesecakey this tastes!  It could even be considered better than "real cheesecake"-- it's much lower in saturated fat, cholesterol, and sugar.  No heavy feeling afterward.  No sugar highs.  Just satisfaction.

Anyone else tried vegan cheesecake?  What's your favorite recipe?

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups!!!!!

Ge the recipe here: Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups

Finally, I can truly understand what all the rage is about, Alicia (Silverstone, that is). These treats from The Kind Diet are the perfect blend of sweet, salty, and bitter. It involves melting peanut butter with vegan butter, graham cracker crumbs, and a bit of sugar. Seperately, you melt nondairy chocolate with some nondairy milk. These are so easy to make! Basically you melt the stuff and then put it in muffin tins and let it set in the fridge for at least 2 hours. I will definitely be making these again. Nums! These could easily be made gluten free with gf cookie or graham crumbs. Too bad we already ate all of them... :(

The Kind Diet - Pecan Crusted Seitan

Very mediocre... Alicia says it's so delicious and could even be loved by meat eaters at parties... I think not. The ingredients all sounded yums (hence I wanted to make and eat it). The seitan was marinated in soy sauce, red wine, orange juice, some spices, and a lot of tomato paste. Then you make a breading of pecan crumbs, flour, and more spices and finally sautee it in olive oil. I was so disappointed- it basically tasted nothing like any of those delicious ingredients. And we even like seitan by itself. So I don't know what the deal is. We ate it, but mostly because it cost about $20 for the ingredients and we didn't want to waste it. Not recommended.