Divine Dines: "Better"finger Bars

Welcome back to Divine Dines!
This week we're taking a look at a fabulous dessert bar recipe that I found on Chocolate Covered Katie.

Vegan "Better"finger bars.

And you're just like "what?". They are like Butterfinger bars, but "better" for you. Get it?

Now, you can see her whole recipe here along with some absolutely drool worthy pictures, but as usual I will relay what I did here:

Ingredients:

• 1/4 corn syrup
• 1 tbsp molasses 
• 3 1/2 tbsp sugar
• 1 cup peanut butter
• 1 1/2 cups Special K
• 1/8 tsp salt 

I doubled the recipe.

1. In a medium saucepan combine the corn syrup, molasses and sugar. 
2. Bring to a boil on medium heat
3. Stir constantly for about a minute
4. Remove from heat and add peanut butter and salt
5. Return to heat to melt peanut butter because it took too long adding it
6. Remove from heat and add cereal
7. Curse yourself for using such a small pan
8. Return to heat to make mixture soft enough to stir in cereal, making sure it is evenly coated
9. Once fully coated remove from heat
10. Press mixture into a pan lined with parchment (8x8 for a single dose recipe)
11. Freeze until solid
12. Thaw enough to cut into bars
13. Eat

Optionally melt some chocolate and coat the tops of the bars before cutting. I didn't and they were still amazing.

Divine Dines: Chickpea and Black Bean Crackers

Welcome back to Divine Dines! This week we're going to look at a vegan cracker recipe that I've made twice now.

This time I found the recipe on Love Food Eat, I went with her Oil-Free Healthy Chickpea Crackers.

You can either follow that link or follow along with me here as I discuss the changes and mistakes I made.
But first:

INGREDIENTS:
1 540ml can of chickpeas
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp dried thyme

1. Preheat oven to 160C (320F)
2. Open and rinse your peas. Rinse them really well so that all of the gritty muck that they are packaged in is rinsed away.
3. Next, using a food processor (or a potato masher and lots of arm strength) mash the peas into a nice thick paste.
4. Add in the flour and seasonings, and combine fully.
5. On a sheet of waxed paper roll out your dough as thinly as you can. Seriously. I rolled mine to about 1/8th of an inch and it was way too thick.
6. Cut out your crackers (whatever shape you want) I suggest 1 1/2 inch squares. 
7. Place them as close as you like on an ungreased cookie sheet, just make sure they don't overlap
8. Bake for 20-30 minutes, or until they are crispy. This may take a while!

So first, my modifications. I used canned chickpeas rather than rehydrated dried ones that were suggested. I found that easier and quicker (it is also what we had on hand). Next, I used seasoning salt instead of regular, which gave the crackers a little more kick.

Finally, on my second batch I used black beans instead of chickpeas, which turned out great! I think I'll try kidney beans next.

On to my mistakes. I only made two, but they seriously effected my outcome: 

1. I didn't roll mine thinly enough. I rolled and rolled and rolled, but they were still about 1/8th of an inch thick. This feels too thick.
2. I didn't cook them long enough. If I had left them in the oven longer, it probably would have mitigated the thicker cracker. As it is I left them in for the suggested 30 minutes, and instead of crispy crackly crackers, I got a strange kind of chickpea leather. 

So in the future I will roll even more (ow, my arms...) and bake longer. They really need to be crispy to be fully enjoy.

As it is, however, the flavour is wonderful, even if the texture is lacking.

Divine Dines: Soft and Chewy Coconut Bread

So I spent the day cooking the other day, and boy was it worth it. Not only is everything delicious, but now I have some things to share! So follow along with me as we delve into some Divine Dines!

First up is a beautiful vegan bread, from Averie Cooks. Only eight ingredients and it makes a nice sized loaf in about four hours.

INGREDIENTS:
1 cup coconut milk
1 cup old-fashioned whole rolled oats (not quick cook or instant)
1/4 cup water
2 cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons light brown sugar, packed
2 1/4 teaspoons instant dry yeast
pinch salt, optional and to taste

The directions, as I followed them, are as follows:

1. Start by microwaving the coconut milk for 2 minutes to boil it, then add it to the oatmeal in a medium bowl. Add in the 1/4 cup of tap water (room temperature or colder). 
2. Wait for that to cool to be touchable, then add half the flour, salt and oil and stir into a soupy sort of mess. Now it should be cool yet warm enough for the yeast, so add that in along with the sugar and stir. 
3. When that is incorporated,  add the rest of the flour. It will now become too thick to stir, so start kneading with your hands.
4. It will be very super extra sticky and moist. This is good! Don't add any more flour.
5. Preheat the oven to 400F for about a minute and a half, then turn it off.
6. Grease a large bowl, and then put your sticky mass in there, then cover the bowl in saran wrap. Put the bowl into the warm oven to rise.
7. About an hour and a half later (or when the dough has doubled) pull it out and unwrap it.
8. Spray down an 8x4" loaf pan with cooking spray
9. Punch the dough down to it's original size, then knead it for about three minutes on a floured surface.
10. Flatten it into a rough rectangle about 8x6"
11. Rub brown sugar onto the exposed side (this is optional, and you could add anything you like here)
12. Roll from the long end to form a log, then lay that log seam side down into the great pan.
13. Cover with saran wrap (very loosely!) again and let sit to double again.
14. Finally preheat the oven to 350F. Remove the saran wrap and bake the loaf for 30 minutes, or until it is golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped.

Apparently you then let it cool completely before cutting it, but I certainly didn't. We left it for about a half hour, but no longer. And boy, was it delicious!

We ate it plain and with butter, and the sweet yeasty flavour was to die for! I certainly cannot recommend this higher!

Banana Nut Cheerios

So as many of you know, I love bananas. They are my favourite fruit. Aside from their unfortunate phallic connotations, they are definitely the best.

So it should come as no surprise that my mum bought me Banana Nut Cheerios the other day(along with some banana ice lollies, yay!) so I'm going to try them.

But what is the point of trying new things if it can't be a SCIENCE EXPERIMENT?

Overall expectations: Low.

I mean, there are so few banana flavoured things, and a lot of them suck. There must be something about bananas that make them difficult to work with or something.

Opening the box, first comes smell test:

They smell like cereal. No distinct banana or sugar smell. Just Cheerios.

Look:
Dude, they're Cheerios. However they seem to have a skinnier, less puffy, opener look to them. I may just have not seen Cheerios in a while, but these ones look a little skinny.

Dry taste:

They have a... something to them. Kinda like banana bread? Sweeter than regular Cheerios, and a surprisingly pleasant taste.

Texture:

Think Cheerios. Exactly.

With Milk:

Unfortunately we are out of milk. That is just depressing.

However, we have 10% cream, and water. So with a splash of each in my bowl, let us proceed:

With Creamy-water:

Good. They have that banana bread taste, in a more pronounced way.

Texture:

They seem to sog down faster than other cereal, and feel a little slimey, though that might be the cream-water.

Smell:

They smell like baking banana bread! Except colder? (Does it make sense that I can smell temperatures?)

Overall reaction:

Pleasantly surprised. They taste good, smell good, and are easy to eat. I like them.

For next time:

Milllllllk!

Cinnamon Sugar Pull-A-Parts

So I found this recipe, and it looks GORRAM good. Expect me to be making some ASAP. Click the sugary goodness to get the recipe

(Or click here as that image has broken twice in this year)