Healthy Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Sweet Treat & Tacos.

I was dying for a sweet treat but I've been so bad lately with all the refined sugar and white flour desserts I've been making. I wanted to try something healthier and I've been inspired by the Happy Pear boys on youtube. They've been making great desserts made out of whole foods. This was my attempt at a dark chocolate peanut butter cake thingy. I was thinking along the lines of a peanut butter cup. It has ground almonds and cashews, natural chunky peanut butter (no sugar added), pureed dates and maple syrup sandwiched between dark chocolate. My filling was a little too wet but I didn't mind after all. I froze the dish for a few hours and it was perfectly sweet and decadent. And it did taste like peanut butter cup!

Went out to get veggie tacos at Baja Fresh tonight. Order the veggie tacos baja style with no cheese!

Mushrooms on toast, TV dinner and Homemade energy bars!

One of my favorite snacks and comfort foods. Saucy mushrooms and tomatoes on toast. Recipe by Mary McCartney.

Gardein "meatloaf", mash, gravy and peas. Vegan tv dinner! Thumbs up on the Gardein meatloaf by the way. Easy to prepare. I would rather make my own though with beans, grains and vegetables. It wouldn't have all that processed stuff that meat analogues have.

I found a recipe for diy energy bars in Runner's World magazine. Here is my version made with oats, peanut butter, dried fruits, chocolate chips and hemp powder.

Based on the Marronthon bars recipe in Runner's World Magazine.
Ingredients:
1 cup rolled oats (toasted in the oven first)
1/4 cup slivered almonds
1 cup dried fruits chopped (apricots, cranberries etc)
1/4 cup hemp protein powder (Trader Joe's vanilla flavor)
1/4 cup flax seeds
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup plus 2 TB of chunky peanut butter
1/2 cup agave syrup, 1/3 cup brown sugar (next time I will cut back to a smaller amount of agave and leave out the sugar)

Method: Mix the toasted oats, fruit, nuts, powder, seeds and chocolate chips in a large bowl. In a small saucepan, heat the agave, peanut butter and sugar until just boiling and the pb is melted. Take off heat and add to oat mixture. Stir until everything is combined. Spread into a prepared pan that was sprayed with oil. Flatten with wet hands and refrigerate for 4 hours. Cut into bars. Keep in fridge wrapped in foil.