Chow Vegan

I’ve been so busy lately, I haven’t had the time to cook much of anything. To stave off starvation, I turn to my time-crunch savior, Amy’s. On a recent Whole Foods trip, I had bought Amy’s new gluten-free, dairy-free rice macaroni with Daiya cheeze for just such a time. And it was on sale for $3.49.

Heating it up couldn’t be any easier, it takes just 5 minutes in the microwave and comes out as a nice, hot tray of creamy, cheesy goodness. I’m no mac-n-cheese connoisseur but Amy’s is pretty tasty. The smell is wonderfully cheesy, the texture and look is spot on.

Although my eyes did bug out when I glanced at the side of the package and saw the amount of sodium, 740 mg. Is mac-n-cheese normally so salty? It’s fairly high in fat and calories too. It’s a whopping 22 grams of fat and 520 calories! That’s like a whole meal for me right there in that one tray.

At least it’s filling and I wasn’t hungry for the rest of the day (good for the super busy). But as tasty as it was, I’m reserving it as an occasional treat only.

I’ve been interested in raw food for awhile now, but I haven’t really gotten around to trying any raw recipes. Then I saw the most awesome chocolate covered raw treats on dreaminitvegan.blogspot.com.

There’s no baking involved, so it’s totally my speed (seeing as I’m no baker by any stretch of the imagination). There’s only 4 ingredients – medjool dates, raw almonds, shredded coconut and vanilla, plus melted chocolate for covering, if you like that sort of thing.

And it taste kinda like an Almond Joy. Oh man, I couldn’t get a hold of the ingredients fast enough.

Super easy to make, just toss into a food processor and hit the button. Instead of a round shape called for in the recipe, I shaped mine into bars. You know, like the candy bar, complete with a couple of almonds on top.

I only had half a chocolate bar to melt, so I just drizzled it over the top, but it’s still good and more than enough. It’s sweet even without the chocolate. I’ll definitely be making these again and again.

Update: I’m happy to report that the nut bars (without the chocolate) freeze well. I stuck a couple of test bars in a tupperware lined with wax paper into the freezer. Basically what I had in the fridge, got popped into the freezer.

Just take out and eat, it doesn’t freeze solid. It’s just a little colder than the refrigerated ones.