Author: PatagoniaLlami

My husband is responsible for introducing me to all sorts of addictive foods. It wasn’t until I met him that I tried Cool Ranch Doritos for the first time, and he’s also responsible for introducing me to these irresistible cookies.

They’re called Peanut Butter Temptations, and the original recipe is found on the back of the bag of Reese’s mini peanut butter cups. As soon as I tried one of these cookies, I was hooked. How can a soft peanut butter cookie stuffed with a chocolate covered peanut butter cup be anything but delicious?

Early on in our relationship, these cookies would grace every birthday and holiday we could think of. The only problem was, I couldn’t stop eating them! (And Austin has WAY more self control than I do.) Once we started adopting a healthier diet, we had to stop making these cookies for our own good. I certainly couldn’t be trusted around them.

My Flourless Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies have been a pretty good alternative for the past few years, but recently Austin asked me if I could try making a “healthier” Peanut Butter Temptation for Halloween this year, because it was one of our favorite treats to enjoy while watching a good Halloween movie– like Hocus Pocus. (I’m sad my son isn’t old enough to appreciate it yet!)

I have to say, this healthier version tastes WAY better than the original. Maybe because there’s more peanut butter flavor? No flour to mute the taste? Whatever it is, I’m afraid I made cookie that is more a addictive than ever. Sorry about that.

Now, because this is the type of recipe you’d only make once or twice a year, I went ahead and used store-bought dark chocolate peanut butter cups to save time. However, you could certainly make a lower-sugar version by making your own mini vegan peanut butter cups, if you prefer. Either way, I hope you’ll enjoy these addictive cookies as much as we have.

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Vegan Peanut Butter Temptations


Makes 24 cookies

Ingredients:

Coconut oil, for greasing


1 tablespoon ground chia seeds


3 tablespoons water


1 cup all-natural organic peanut butter


3/4 cup coconut sugar


1 teaspoon vanilla extract


1/2 teaspoon baking soda


1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt


2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar

24 mini vegan peanut butter cups

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350ºF and grease a mini muffin pan with coconut oil. In a large bowl, stir together the ground chia seeds and water to make a “chia egg.” It will gel together and thicken as you measure out the peanut butter. To the chia egg, add in the peanut butter, coconut sugar, vanilla, baking soda and sea salt and mix to form a thick batter. Stir in the vinegar last, which will react with the baking soda to help the cookies rise.

Use a tablespoon to drop the batter into each mini muffin well. I like to use a cookie scoop like this so that all of the cookies have the same about of batter. Bake at 350ºF until the cookies rise and are lightly golden on top, about 10 to 12 minutes.

While the cookies are baking, remove the peanut butter cups from their wrappers. This recipe is time sensitive so it’s imperative that you are ready to insert the peanut butter cups the moment the cookies come out of the oven. So don’t get distracted! (I’ve been known to do that…)

As soon as the cookies are done, immediately press a peanut butter cup into the center of each one. The cookies should be soft enough in the center that they are easily pressed into. Once all of the peanut butter cups have been inserted into the cookies, allow the cookies to cool completely. Once cool, use a knife to remove each cookie, sliding the knife around the edge of each cookie to loosen them up. They will be fragile if still warm at all.

Austin and I actually prefer these cookies cold, so I place them on a plate and keep them in the fridge to serve. Store them in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a week, or in the freezer for up to 3 months. (Austin likes them directly from the freezer– but I think the peanut butter cups are too hard that way.)

Per Serving: Calories: 176, Fat: 11g, Carbohydrates: 14g, Fiber: 2g, Protein: 4g

Note: As always, if you’d prefer to avoid peanut butter, feel free to use any other nut or seed butter you like, such as almond, cashew, or sunflower seed. Justin’s Mini Dark Chocolate Peanut Cups have vegan ingredients, if you want to rely on those for convenience.

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Reader Feedback: What’s your favorite treat to serve on special occasions? My No-Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars are our other family favorite!

This Vegan Butternut Squash Macaroni and Cheese is made with a velvety butternut squash cashew cheese sauce and topped with crispy sage panko breadcrumbs- it’s crazy good!

Oh..hello, super rich, insanely creamy, incredibly comforting macaroni and cheese that does not actually contain any cheese or dairy WHATSOEVER. You are officially my new best friend.

That’s right folks, this Vegan Butternut Squash Macaroni and Cheese is completely dairy free, and it doesn’t rely on a processed alternative cheese product either. Instead, this is a cashew/almond milk bechamel and butternut squash based sauce that achieves dreamy, Velveeta-like proportions (and that I would literally bathe in if it was deemed socially acceptable).

This is actually a recipe that I’ve posted on the blog before. And it happens to be one of the most popular recipes ever on LPE ever (currently sitting pretty at #2, thankyouverymuch). You can check out that recipe here– it’s great! But because it’s been so well-received I wanted to revisit it, update it with some prettier photos and see where I could make some minor improvements to an already awesome recipe. Here’s what I did differently this time:

I soaked the cashews for about an hour to help them blend up a bit easier, and I also strained the cashews after blending to remove any solid particles that remained. These two tiny tweaks allow for maximum smoothness factor in the sauce.

I also upped the quantity of nutritional yeast to a whopping three tablespoons. The previous recipe calls for two to three tablespoons, but this time, no wishy-washy-ing. I’m standing firm at three for ultimate cheesy flavor. Trust me, more is better in this case.

Oh, and let us not forget about the epic-ness of the crispy sage breadcrumb topping, because butternut squash and sage are like two peas in a pod. So are mac and cheese and panko. I didn’t touch this part of the recipe because it’s perfect just the way it is. Adding a little contrast of crunch to soft noodles enrobed in a lusciously silky sauce is ALWAYS a good idea. I advise you never to skip this step lest the quality of your mac and cheese suffer!

If you make this Vegan Butternut Squash Macaroni and Cheese, share a pic with the hashtag #LePetitEats on Instagram, so we can be vegan mac and cheese buddies forever!

I’ll admit it…I am a cooking show FANATIC!  This one was loosely inspired by Bobby Flay.  I’m not big into really spicy food (as Bobby is known for), so I tailored this recipe quite a bit.

These Portobello Tacos with Cucumber Ranch Dressing feature roasted peppers and onions and grilled portobello mushrooms.  I use a bunch of different grill seasonings, but there are sooooo many blends out there – find one that suits your particular tastes.  McCormick Seasonings have a new line called GrillMates that I really like.  Still, I tend to mix those with Mrs. Dash seasoning as well. Tried and true  for me 🙂

You can certainly use an outdoor grill, but for these, I just heat up my grill pan.  It’s 110 degrees outside here in Arizona right now.  I definitely don’t want to be standing over a hot grill 🙂  I just brush the first side of the portobello mushroom with a bit of canola oil and sprinkle my seasonings on.  I grill that side and just prior to flipping, oil and season the second side.  I only flip once, so be sure to give the first side enough time to cook.  It should just be starting to get tender before you flip.

I roasted red, yellow and green peppers in my toaster oven along with onions.  You could also add garlic.  Lightly toss with oil before roasting.  They should be slightly charred and very tender.  Season with salt if you feel it needs it.

While they are roasting, prepare the cucumber ranch dressing.  I like it because it provides a cool contrast without an overpowering flavor.

We doubled up two soft corn tortillas and garnished with a bit of parsley.  You could use cilantro.  I personally don’t love it, so I always exchange it out for parsley in pretty much every single recipe 🙂

Before you go, why not check out some of our recent videos and be sure to subscribe to the YouTube Channel! 🙂

Happy Day before Thanksgiving!! Do you have everything you need from the store?? You didn’t forget brown sugar did you?? I accidentally bought dark and I’m much more a fan of light brown sugar. So, back to grocery it is for me to fight through the crowds.

I’m really looking forward to Thanksgiving this year. After the passing of my father, I have a very new sense of connection to my family that I have never felt before. A sense that I want to soak up every moment with them, listening to all the stories instead of sitting around looking at my phone all day. And also making new stories that we’ll tell lovingly in future years when maybe (hopefully) there are new members of the family and maybe (sadly) not everyone is still around.

Over the past few months, my brother and I have been tasked with completely clearing out my father’s rather large house (the house where we spent many of our childhood years). As might be expected, we found many boxes filled with old photos and even some home movies that neither of us had ever seen. We very much accidentally watched the tape of my mother giving birth to me and promptly hit the fast forward button on that (WHY did my dad record the ENTIRE thing!?).

But on that same tape, a few years later after my brother had been born, was a clip of my father bouncing the 2 of us on our new trampoline. At one point, my father bounced us a little too high for my brother’s liking causing him to cry. The video captured our dad scooping both of us up and kissing us both repeatedly until my brother’s tears turned to laughter again. Sitting on fold out chairs in my father’s empty living room, we both quietly sobbed watching that film. For me, it was easily one of the most valuable things in the entire house and I will cherish that tape forever.

All of that to say, I want my kids to have that too: video of their family all together, interacting, loving, sharing food. My plan, with both my side of the family and Mr. Britnell’s, is to film a little at each family get together and each year, compile it all into a short film that will be made available to the whole family. I have no doubt that I will love (love love) watching these back many years from now with my kids and explaining to them “that’s aunt so and who you might not remember” and “gosh, what the heck was I wearing!?”.

I also really want to get individual interviews with all of my family members but I haven’t exactly pinned down how that will go 🙂

OK. Lets make us some super Simple Vegan Beer Bread, shall we? This bread is VERY easy to make, requires no kneading, and is maybe one of my favorite things ever! Full disclosure: this recipe is VERY similar to my original beer bread recipe but without the real butter and honey.

The easy part: it all comes together in ONE bowl and, once again, require ZERO kneading (!!).

Here, have a gif of me pouring the beer in:

Oops, this time again but without the kitten (not really a kitten anymore, wah) in it:

There’s something SO very satisfying about that ^^^^^^.

Now just mix it all together and then pour the batter into a greased loaf pan. You’re already almost done!

Now my favorite part besides adding in the beer: the BUTTAH! This is salted and whipped vegan butter and I’m kind of obsessed with it. I almost always use THIS Earth Balance butter.

I forgot to mention that butter is poured into the bottom of the pan AND the top. Oh my. It’s SO good!

The result is a buttery and crispy exterior with a soft and moist interior. It’s perfection in bread form!

I hope you have a beautiful Thanksgiving weekend that is filled with LOTS of memory making family time.

oh ps- I just started posting live videos on my nom.com profile. I’ll be posting there several times a week showing you which recipes I’m testing, photographing, restaurants I’m trying, and just generally what I eat on a daily basis. You can check out my profile here: https://nom.com/u/bbritnell

These Vegan Cookie Dough Bars are safe to eat, made with real ingredients, and are naturally sweetened! The perfect edible cookie dough in one healthy treat.

This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Affiliate I earn from qualifying purchases. All opinions are my own.

Who doesn’t love a good edible cookie dough?

Vegan Cookie Dough for One is one of my most popular posts. Apparently the world has been waiting for some safe, perfectly portioned cookie dough to get in their faces.

Let’s take that a step further, and have a delicious no bake cookie bar that is perfect for a treat, taking to a party, or girls night out.

Ingredients

These are affiliate links.

• Raw, unsalted almonds
• Pitted dates
• Salt
• Vanilla extract
• Coconut oil
• Maple syrup
• All purpose flour
• Vegan mini chocolate chips

How to make vegan cookie dough bars:

1. Spread flour on a baking sheet and bake at 350ºF to kill any bacteria. Let cool.
2. Prepare your loaf pan with parchment paper.
3. Process almonds in food processor until coarse. Add the dates, a pinch of salt, and vanilla and process until a dough ball forms.
4. Press the mixture into an even layer in the prepared pan and set aside.
5. Combine liquid ingredients in a small bowl and mix well. Stir in flour and chocolate chips and mix until smooth.
6. Spread cookie dough mixture over almond mixture.
7. Refrigerate until set, then cut into squares.

Top questions

Is this cookie dough really safe to eat?

This cookie dough is 100% safe to eat thanks to toasting the flour in the oven and leaving out any eggs. Raw flour has been linked to food borne illness, so be sure to follow each step for safe to eat cookie dough.

How long will these no bake cookie dough bars keep?

These bars will keep in the fridge, in an air tight container for up to a week or in the freezer for up to three months.

Are these really healthy?

These are different from other cookie dough bars because it’s a layer of cookie dough on top of a nut/date crust (essentially a larabar!).

The dates and almonds will help you stay full, and they are full of fiber nutrients your body needs. You know how sometimes you eat junk food and it just leaves you wanting more?

These bars are legitimately satisfying, and filling. You won’t even want to overindulge. They make a great treat for the kids, too.

Tips for customizing your edible cookie dough bars

• Swap the cookie dough for a triple batch of peanut butter cookie dough or double chocolate chip cookie dough
• Sprinkle the top with additional sea salt
• Use whatever nut combination you’d like for the crust such as pecan or cashew
• Make them gluten-free by using your favorite 1:1 gluten-free flour
• Swap the chocolate chips for carob chips or cacao nibs

More cookies to enjoy

• Vegan Cookie Dough Dip For Two
• Vegan Cookie For One
• How To Make Edible Cookie Dough
• Vegan Peanut Butter Single Serving Cookie Dough
• Homemade Cashew Cookie Larabars

If you make this recipe, be sure to rate it, leave a comment, or tag #theliveinkitchen on Instagram!

Recipe

Vegan Cookie Dough Bars

These vegan cookie dough bars are sweet without being over powering. They are a healthier, all natural way to satisfy that sweet tooth as well as your hunger.

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Prep Time: 10 minutes minutes

Toasting flour: 5 minutes minutes

Total Time: 15 minutes minutes

Servings: 8

Calories: 237kcal

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Spread the flour on a rimmed baking sheet and bake for 5 minutes to kill any bacteria. Let cool completely.

• Line a loaf pan with parchment paper. Set aside.

• Place almonds in the bowl of a food processor and process until coarse but not powdery.

• Add the dates, a pinch of salt, and ¼ teaspoon of the vanilla and process until a dough ball forms. If the dough seems too crumbly, add a few drops of water until you reach the desired consistency. Be careful because too much water will make the dough extremely sticky.

• Press the dough into an even layer in the prepared pan.

• In a medium sized bowl, combine the coconut oil, maple syrup, and ¾ teaspoon vanilla with a fork until thick and well combined.

• Add the flour and another pinch of salt and mix until smooth and shiny. Mix in 1 tablespoon of the mini chocolate chips.

• Pour the cookie dough over the almond mixture in the pan and smooth the top. Sprinkle with an additional tablespoon of chocolate chips, if desired, and use your hand to gently press them into the dough so they’ll stick.

• Refrigerate until set, about 30 minutes. Use the parchment to lift the bars from the pan and cut into bars or bite sized portions.

• At this point you can transfer them to an airtight container and refrigerate until ready to serve, up to one week, or freeze up to 3 months.

Nutrition

Calories: 237kcal | Carbohydrates: 36g | Protein: 4g | Fat: 10g | Saturated Fat: 5g | Cholesterol: 1mg | Sodium: 3mg | Potassium: 269mg | Fiber: 4g | Sugar: 24g | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 45mg | Iron: 1mg

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Meet my favorite pumpkin soup recipe. It’s super creamy (thanks mostly to the pumpkin, with a little help from coconut milk or cream) yet plenty healthy, too. It’s gently spiced, but I made sure that the pumpkin flavor shines above the rest.

This dairy-free pumpkin soup would be a welcome addition to your holiday table. It would be equally at home with a soup or sandwich from fall through winter.

It’s easy to make and the leftovers taste even better the next day. So, you could certainly make the soup a day in advance. Don’t be intimidated by the ingredient list—this soup only requires basic pantry ingredients!

This soup was inspired by my recent trip to Portland. While I was there, I went to lunch with my baby brother and our friend Bill. I’ve written about Bill over the years—in summary, Bill beat leukemia with the help of my stem cells. He’s the toughest guy I know.

Now we’re friends who share the same immune system and we finally got to meet a few weeks ago. (You can join the registry here.)

We shared lunch and an afternoon at Multnomah Falls. It was a damp, gray fall day in the Pacific Northwest and it was perfect.

Bill picked The Picnic House for lunch. You really have to go next time you’re in Portland. “Unique” doesn’t begin to describe it—the restaurant feels like an old school theater inside, with different scenes set up in every corner and amazing food everywhere the eye can see.

I was tempted to order every item on the menu, but after much deliberation, I finally settled on a small soup, salad and sandwich. I might just have to recreate all three of them for the blog (so good), but homemade pumpkin soup seemed most timely.

I can’t say that my version is exactly the same, but it is equally satisfying and fresh. It’s utterly delicious in its own right.

Pumpkin Options

This pumpkin soup recipe includes instructions on how to roast fresh pumpkin, for maximum pumpkin flavor. Canned pumpkin purée also works well, if you’re in a time crunch. See the recipe notes for details!

Please let me know how this recipe turns out for you in the comments. I’m always so eager for your feedback. If you’re craving more cozy fall soups, don’t miss my butternut soup, lentil soup or minestrone.

Watch How to Make Pumpkin Soup

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I love making something for my friends to help them through tough times as well as helping them celebrate fun ones — upcoming exams, engagements, and of course birthdays. Well my best friend Kori moved back to North Carolina last week for a new job (she’s from CT too but we both went to undergrad in NC), and she was nervous and excited all at the same time — a perfect opportunity for cookies! Kori offers a particular challenge since she doesn’t eat eggs or butter, but she wouldn’t be Kori if she wasn’t a little difficult, so I started an internet search for the best vegan chocolate chip cookies and voila…

Making vegan chocolate cupcakes as I did for Kori’s birthday doesn’t digress much from a non-vegan recipe, but substituting butter and eggs in cookies is a bit more challenging. As you can see from the photo, the cookies have some cracks in them — this is mostly because the recipe calls for oil, which is a cheaper and somewhat easier alternative in this case to vegan butter, but the stability suffers as a result. Since I made these for her to snack on during the 13 hour road trip, I ended up wrapping them individually in seran wrap so they didn’t crumble too much. With that being said, these cookies were delicious, no matter what kind of diet you adhere to. The addition of molasses really helps achieve the classic chocolate chip cookie taste, and I particularly enjoyed the crunch of the turbinado sugar. I also love the look of chopped dark chocolate in cookies instead of chocolate chips, so that choice made these even more enticing.

If you follow a vegan diet or have a vegan friend moving hundreds of miles away, consider making these cookies and the world will truly be a better place. From this blog you could gather that I’m clearly not vegan, but I do limit my intake of animal products as much as possible — using almond milk in my cereal every morning, incorporating meat into dinners only once a week, and choosing not to eat mammals (i.e. pork and beef). There’s a variety of ethical and health reasons that go into all this, but I just think it’s important to educate yourself on what you choose to put in your body and respect the choices of others. And if you’re interested in other vegan recipes, you have to check out my friend Kori’s fabulous blog:  www.kori-lynn.com!

Enough of my soap box, onto the cookies…

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 cups flour

1 cup turbinado sugar (or granulated sugar)

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup dark chocolate chips/chunks (make sure they’re vegan!)

2/3 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup soy/almond milk

1 tsp vanilla

1 tbsp dark molasses

– Preheat oven to 350 degrees

– In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and chocolate chips.

– In another bowl, combine the vegetable oil, milk, vanilla, and molasses.

– Add the wet mixture to the dry and mix well with a wooden spoon or your hands to get the mixture well incorporated.

– Roll dough into compact balls, place on a parchment paper-lined pan, and squish them down to form saucers.

– Bake in the oven for 8-10 minutes. Let cookies cool for 5 minutes on the pan before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Recipe yields about 16 cookies.

** If you want to try using vegan butter instead to improve the stability of these cookies, just substitute the amount indicated for oil, and cream the room-temperature “butter” in the bowl of an electric mixer with the sugar. Then mix in the rest of the wet ingredients, followed by the dry. Let me know how that turns out if you try it!