Vegan, Gluten-Free No-Bake Cookie Bars

nobake_cookiebars

The trick to making these vegan is substituting agave or maple syrup for honey, and vegan butter or coconut oil for regular butter. The way to make these gluten-free is to only use ingredients labeled as such. Most oats, despite not being a wheat product, are produced on shared equipment. Gluten-free oats exist, however, so as long as you use those, you should be golden! If you’re allergic to peanuts, you can substitute almond, cashew, or sunflower seed butter. See? Wicked adaptable. Feel free to add stuff to this basic recipe—dried cranberries, pistachios, banana chips, chocolate chips if you need more chocolate. Dream big.

What you’ll need:

  • Two cups of oats
  • One-half cup of a liquid sweetener like honey, agave nectar, or maple syrup
  • One-half cup of a solid fat like coconut oil, butter, or vegan butter
  • One cup of a nut butter (peanut, sunflower seed, almond, cashew)
  • One cup of shredded coconut
  • One and one-fourth cups of chocolate chips, any kind (white, milk, dark, vegan, et cetera!)
  • One teaspoon of vanilla extract
  • One-half to one cup of whatever other stuff you want to add (see suggestions above!)

How to do it:

    1. Grease a baking pan. (9 inches x 13 inches is a pretty standard size, but you can use whatever baking pan you have around. Its size will only affect the thickness of your final product.)

    2. In a big pot on the stove, over low heat, mix the nut butter, liquid sweetener, and fat and stir until it melts together.

    3. Once it’s melted, take it off the heat and mix in all the other ingredients. Stir like a maniac until the chocolate is melted.

    4. Smush the mixture into the greased pan and refrigerate until it’s hardened a bit. Slice it into bars and eat eat eat.

Keep the leftovers in a container in the fridge between layers of parchment paper or cling film if you have it—the liquid sweetener makes these guys pretty sticky.

Banana “Ice Cream”

nobake_icecream

I hate when people refer to certain foods as “trends” because like, it’s food, not Silly Bandz or platform sneakers, but I’ve definitely been seeing a “trend” of banana ice cream on vegan and raw food blogs! It’s ridiculously easy to make, is super adaptable, tastes like soft-serve ice cream, and since the only ingredient is bananas, you can eat as much as you want without worrying about a hummingbird-style sugar crash. Nutritious ice cream, especially for breakfast, is one trend I can really get behind.

What you’ll need:

  • As many bananas as you want (peeled, chopped and frozen—more on this in a second)
  • Optional: a milk of your choice (almond, hemp, soy, dairy, sweetened, flavored, et cetera) and other add-ins (chocolate, other fruits, nuts, sprinkles, crushed cookies, granola or muesli—go bananas!)

How to do it:

    1. At least six hours before you want to make your ice cream, peel your ripe bananas and cut them into little slices. Place these slices in a freezer bag or other sealed container and freeze them. (Trust me, you do NOT want to try and peel a whole frozen banana. It’s nonsense).

    2. When you’re ready to make your ice cream, place the frozen banana slices in a food processor (or blender, if that’s what’s around) and blend, baby, blend. It might take a minute for your appliance of choice to break down the big chunks, but if you stick with it, your frozen bananas will whip themselves up into a fluffy cloud of mock soft-serve. If you want to expedite the process, add your milk of choice tablespoon by tablespoon, but this will thin out the ice cream very quickly and make it seem melt-y (very delicious, but messy).

    3. Scoop the ice cream into a bowl and stir in/top with whatever you want. It’s also totally delicious by itself.

Vegan Chocolate Mousse Pie

nobake_pie

This pie is the stuff of legend—literally. I always made it for bands that would play shows at my old house. Tales of this amazing pie spread far and wide, so much so that bands who had never played our house would come through and coyly ask if I had made (or could make) the legendary pie. This tastes sooo fancy, and it’s sooo…not fancy. This seriously takes less than 10 minutes to make. And don’t be scared of the tofu—you won’t even notice it’s there.

What you’ll need:

  • One package of silken (preferably silken-firm) tofu
  • One and one-half cups of chocolate chips
  • One teaspoon of vanilla extract
  • A pinch of salt
  • One pre-made graham cracker pie crust (you can make your own crust if you’re feeling fancy, but I always used a vegan pre-made crust for this one so it would taste like a good, old-fashioned church-picnic freezer pie)
  • Optional: peanut butter or another nut butter for swirling, stuff to sprinkle on top like shaved chocolate, whipped cream for serving

How to do it:

    1. Carefully melt the chocolate in the microwave or a double boiler on the stove
    Mix the tofu, vanilla, salt, and melted chocolate in a food processor or blender; whip it until it’s totally blended.

    2. Pour the mixture into the pie crust. At this point you can swirl in some peanut butter or sprinkle weird stuff on top: Whatever floats your boat.

    3. Put the pie in the fridge for a couple of hours to chill until it firms up.

Good luck, cool thing, and happy un-baking!! xx ♦