No-Bake Blondie Gems for Gems

Posted on April 26, 2013 by Hannah

Last week, my two current housemates and I, plus the lass whose room I have been subletting, got together for a night of delicious food, laughter, and friendship.

I count myself truly lucky to have found at this sublet not only a bed to sleep in and a kitchen to dance around (ooh! and stairs to get concussed falling down on!), but also three inspiring, passionate, driven, and wonderful women to become friends with.

Erin, thank you for sharing your career- and life-wisdom, and for the joy of playing duets together on the keyboard. Maíra, thank you for allowing me to borrow your room, for the Brazilian chocolate, and for always keeping an eye out for opportunities for me.

Sarah, thank you for everything that you are, for every late-night heart-talk and gigglefit, and for being someone I can’t conceive wasn’t always in my life.

Whole Foods, thank you for your contribution to our spread. Olives, thank you for hiding almonds within your depths; that was a delicious surprise. San Pellegrino, thank you for being so fizzy, both alone and as part of the cocktail I didn’t partake in because orange liqueur was involved.

Medjool dates, pecans, almonds, coconut sugar, and vanilla, thank you for being perfection. Thank you for joining together to create these no-bake vegan blondie gems for my housemate gems. Thank you for being delicious, and for providing a sweet ending to a night that was already very sweet.

No-Bake Vegan Blondie Gems for Gems

Adapted from Amber’s Famous Five-Minute Raw Vegan Blondies

1/2 cup raw pecans
1/2 cup raw almonds
2/3 cup rolled oats (certified gluten-free if need be)
1 cup Medjool dates, gloriously squishy and sweet
1 1/2 tablespoons coconut sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
pinch sea salt

1. Process the pecans, almonds, and oats in a food processor until fairly finely chopped (but not a complete powder).

2. Add the dates, coconut sugar, vanilla extract, and salt, and process until the mixture is cohesive and sticks together when pressed between your fingers.

3. Roll into small balls and store in the fridge or freezer, or alternatively on a plate to wonderful friends, right now.

Submitted to Ricki’s Wellness Weekend, Healthy Vegan Fridays, and Allergy-Friendly Lunchbox Love.

Vegan Valentine’s Day Gift Box, Part Two

Posted on April 12, 2013 by Hannah

It’s time for part two of the Vegan Valentine’s Day Gift Box of Wonderment! If you’re inclined to think that nothing could compare to the lavender chocolate cup and insanely good truffles of part one… read on.

As if in reward for having braved the chocolate truffles, I found slipped against the side of my heart-shaped tin a dark chocolate bar positively festooned with almonds and figs.

And lo! The underside of the chocolate had been decorated with one of the chocolate transfer sheets I myself gave Lisa for her birthday! The transfer sheets I’d bought in New York! New York! Lisa! Chocolate! All the good things.

Remember how I said that Lisa and Nicole are chocolate masters? Hooooooly yes. The aroma was richly chocolate-y with hints of vanilla, and the bite was crisp, yet melted smoothly. It was quite a sweet chocolate, making me think of palm sugar and sunny beaches and more vanilla. The figs were chewy and deeply flavoured with figginess, and the almonds lent a lovely roasted crunch.

You’re in luck: the recipe for this gluten-free chocolate chip almond cookie can be found on Nicole’s blog. Never let it be said I don’t care about you.

As a devout lover of my own raw vegan brownies (both the original and carob versions), I was looking forward to trying this firm-chocolate-topped version. Nutty, sweet, chewy…. it met my expectations.

Hello there, beautiful.

Don’t be shy, now. I’m just undressing you is all.

Why, aren’t you just the prettiest raw vegan Moonie Pie in the world? Yes you are. Oh yes you are. (Not only was this made by Lisa and Nicole, but the recipe is my friend Heathy’s, whom I visited last year.)

If only there were a part three to this box of treats.

Northern Ontario Wilderness Magic with Heathy: Part Three

Posted on March 8, 2013 by Hannah

If I were to create new titles for my Northern Ontario adventures last year, Part One would be renamed “Magical Friendship and Raw Vegan Dessert Heaven” and Part Two would be called “Flights of Fancy and Carob Cashew Marvellous Mousse”.

Today’s post, Part Three, would be known simply as “The One Where Our Faces Show Up A Lot”.

Do you want to know the signs of true friendship in the North? They include:

Being driven into town every day by your non-coffee-drinking friend so that you can buy a cup of coffee from the lovely local cafe;
Having your friend come up with reasons why she “needs” to go into town every day so that you never have to actually ask for said coffee run; it simply happens;
Walking through the snow while laughing over Elvis sightings and then gasping with glee because MINIATURE HORSE-PONY-CREATURE-THING-JOY-PATTING-PATTING;
Not being made fun of when you have to use the absolute lightest weights during an impromptu workout together over a fun girly movie;

Making raw vegan sushi in the kitchen one night after exhilarating in the joy of a yoga class led by Heathy (who is, no word of a lie, the best yoga instructor I’ve ever had… why are you so far away, Heathy? Why?);
Giggling wildly upon later discovering that, while you were smiling serenely at the camera, Heathy was wielding a knife like a gorgeous fiend behind you;

Finding someone who will not only be silly with you in the kitchen, but will respond to your pleas not to roll the sushi “because I’m not any good at it!” by handing you the nori and stating that “you only learn by doing”, thus further reinforcing her soulsister/spirit-guide status;

(Mmm, delicious sushi and delicious Ontario white wine…)

Feeling like you’ve known each other for longer than you can remember, and wishing you lived close enough to have movie-dessert-wine nights every week;

But, because you currently don’t live close enough for that, being given a plate of your favourite of Heathy’s pumpkin treats (the raw vegan pumpkin pie) as well as the one you hadn’t yet tasted (the traditional baked, but still gluten-free and dairy-free, pumpkin pie) to eat on the four hour Greyhound bus back to Thunder Bay, en route to Toronto; and

Knowing that even if it’s months before you see each other again, the memories are strong enough to keep your friendship shimmering like gossamer.

Northern Ontario Wilderness Magic with Heathy: Part Two

Posted on March 2, 2013 by Hannah

To read the first two installments of my Northern Ontario adventure, click here and here.

My first day with Heather in her winter wonderland home was marked by naught but joy, deliciousness, laughter, secret-sharing, and the forging of soulsister-bonds. I awoke the next morning wondering if our second day could possibly be as magical as the first.

It could.

After making and enjoying a nourishing breakfast together as the fire crackled in the fireplace behind us, Heathy and I headed out to watch her partner, J, take off from a lake on his fancypants waterplane-machine. (It probably has a more technical name than that, but “fancypants waterplane-machine” makes sense in my head.)

Planes that take off from and land on water! Who knew! This world of ours!

Then lo! More exclamation marks! Suddenly Heathy and I weren’t simply watching J take off from the water from inside a warm building on land; we were inside the plane.

Girls on a plane!

I was giddy with excitement.

Up, up, and away!

Heathy was kind enough to let me sit in the front of the plane with J, and thus I was able to witness, first-hand, J’s astounding skills as a pilot.

I mean, look at all those gadgets and gizmos and thingamabobs I’ve got twenty! (Wait, no, that’s The Little Mermaid.)

We flew over lakes and houses, over trees and snow, down and up and around until we finally landed on another lake and slowly made our way through shards of ice to the shore.

Thank you, J, for an incredible experience unlike any I’ve ever had.

Unfortunately, Heathy was feeling a little unwell after the flight, but it was nothing a little soulsister firepit dancing couldn’t heal.

And a little more, for good luck.

As I’m sure you could guess from the dessert extravaganza of my first night, no day with Heathy is complete without enjoying some sort of epic raw dessert of wonderment. Heathy knows I love carob and nuts, and that I was interested in playing with Irish moss, and so we danced in the kitchen to create the most amazing, luscious, I’m-still-craving-it-now-why-can’t-I-have-an-everlasting-supply-of-it raw vegan Carob Cashew Mousse.

We took the carob topping from Heathy’s Double Choco Strawberry Cake in Raw Food Carob Desserts, increased the amount and switched up a few proportions, and dear holy squee. We done good. We done so good I forgot language speak proper.

And then Heathy went and garnished our dessert with lucuma coconut cashews.

I can’t even. So much wanting. This is why I’ve taken so long to write up these posts; I almost can’t cope with the levels of wanting that accompany the remembering.

Only almost, though, because the remembering in fact makes me deliriously happy, and such happiness is something I never want to forget.

Northern Ontario Wilderness Magic with Heathy: Part One

Posted on February 23, 2013 by Hannah

How can I convey to you, in nothing more than unmoving words on a white screen, the week of enchanted and unexpected magic that I spent with Heathy of Sweetly Raw and Food and Yoga for Life in her northern Ontario home last November? How can I adequately describe the way our kindred sistersouls starting weaving together like lace from the moment we met, and how the depth of our connection combined with the dreamlike surroundings made it seem like every vulnerability was uncovered, yet at the same time like we were soaring, because we were together, curled up by the fireplace, shimmering and understanding everything?

How can I explain what it was that led Heathy to invite me into her home and world, and for me to accept without hesitation (and, in so doing, undertake over a day’s worth of travelling each way), when in truth we barely knew each other beforehand? How can I, long a skeptic of all such matters, explain this in any other way than that the universe made it so, that somehow the stars knew that Heathy and I needed to find each other and begin our deep friendship just like this, cocooned from the outside world by snow and distance, sharing secrets, stories, and an endless array of sweet treats?

I can’t explain it. And perhaps I shouldn’t. Perhaps it is enough to be grateful to the universe for bringing Heather (and her delicious Sweetly Raw desserts) into my life.

Perhaps it is enough to simply show you a glimpse of our magic.

After my flight to Thunder Bay, overnight B&B stay, and four hour bus ride the next morning, Heathy picked me up from the Greyhound station and drove us an hour back to her home. From the moment I stepped out of Heathy’s car and saw the lake glittering with the sun’s light beyond tall silver trees in her backyard, I knew my week was going to be special.

Oh hey there, little squirrel fellow! Aren’t you just a sweetest thing!

Hide and seek! I see you! Up there on your squirrel roof! Don’t worry, I’m not about to steal your squirrel feed.

After all, Heathy and I have almost 4 kilos of intensely amazing raw almond butter inside, and we don’t really want to share either.

After I’d finished the above imaginary conversation with a squirrel, Heathy bundled me up in winter gear and took me off exploring with her little poodle pup, who was so affectionate and lovely that I began to miss my own poodle pup terribly, my poodle pup who recently passed away.

But this is not a post of sadness; this is a post of joy. The joy of new friendship, of wearing reversible mittens both ways at the same time (pink! brown!), of skipping stones across the water and laughingtalkinglaughing breathlessly.

After a little more time getting lost in the beauty of northern Ontario, I experienced the incredibilityfulness of Heathy’s raw pizza wizardry for dinner while also meeting her partner J, who is a man of awesomeness.

The recipes for Heathy’s all-raw buckwheat sunflower seed sundried tomato pizza crust, marinara sauce, pesto, marinated veggies, and cashew cheese are available here. You must make them. Forever. Except leave room for dessert, because…

Is this what heaven looks like?

Wait, no.

This is what heaven looks like.

I may have started to hyperventilate a little bit when Heathy said “dessert time!” and then laid out, on the counter, everything you see above. All raw, all vegan, all so incredibly beyond comprehension delicious that I almost cried with overwhelmed exuberance.

Raw vegan dark chocolate moonie pies, jumbo almond butter cups, jumbo peanut butter cups, pear crumble, pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin pie, lucuma pumpin fudge, cashew chocolate clusters, almond chocolate clusters, macaroons…

This is what heaven looks like.

I told you it was magic.

Wayfaring Chocolate

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