Oreo truffles

This is a quickly step-wise guide to oreo truffles. Yes, you can find this recipe on vegweb, kraft recipes, and otherwise. However, I like my version, which is why I share it with you.
This is a discovery of an amazingly easy vegan truffle that ANYONE can make. Also, anyone who tasted these loved them, and yes...100% vegan.


The oreo truffle - the recipe is found all over the internet, but this is what I did:
1. Buy the following: 8oz tofutti better than cream cheese, 16ish oz package of oreos or newman O's, 1 bag of semi-sweet vegan chocolate chips (I use either Sunspire or Ghirardelli)

2. Set out the cream cheese to soften while you do step number 3 - you will thank me later. Okay, so this is where I tell you the modification that I made. I had already used 1/4 of the tub of tofutti better than cream cheese to make a half batch of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World cream cheese frosting. I ONLY USED 6 OZ of cream cheese. Did it make a difference? I don't know. My recommendation: make cupcakes with the cream cheese frosting AND these oreo truffles. Problem solved.

3. Use a food processor and chop up the oreos - the whole cookie, the whole package. We did this in 3 batches to make it easier.

4. Stir in the cream cheese with the chopped up cookies - we stirred by hand, but you could probably use the food processor.

5. Make about 4 dozen balls of the cookie mixture. The balls will be about the size of a ping pong ball or slightly smaller. This step is completely up to you. Do you want bigger truffles? Do you like bite-size truffles? We went the smaller, bite-size route. We got 47 balls...you might get more or less. This would be a great stopping point if you need to do something else. You can refrigerate these little balls for awhile, and I would see that they would hold up to be drowned in the melted chocolate a little better. However, if you have the time, move on to step 5 right away.

5. Melt the chocolate chips - I put the whole bag in a glass bowl and microwaved it, stirring every so often until the chips were completely melted. You could do the double-boiler style melting. It is up to you!

6. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper, clear space in your refrigerator for the said cookie sheet, and get ready to make a mess.

7. Dunk the balls in the chocolate and land them on the cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. My tip: use spoons or forks to help you coat the truffle balls and transport them from the bowl to the cookie sheet.

8. Refrigerate until they are hardened. We let the truffles refrigerate over night. I've seen that you can freeze these for awhile, but you should really share them with friends, family, and/or co-workers, so you don't eat the whole batch yourself.

9. Try not to eat three in a row. (Good luck with that!)

Musical coincidence?

In this household, we make pancakes every Sunday morning. My standby is blueberry pancakes, but I've been wanting to get rid of use some very ripe bananas for the last week (without freezing them or just tossing them in the garbage. It is definitely still too cold to walk my butt to the compost bin in the corner of the backyard).
My original intentions for these overly ripe bananas was banana bread, but I still have two bananas left...it could still happen!

Pure coincidence happened this morning: "Banana Pancakes" (by Jack Johnson) filled the air as I was dancing and flipping banana pecan pancakes this morning. Yes, I dance while making food. It is a totally common thing to do. Try it yourself! Recipe found in Vegan with a Vengeance.

Actually, less tofu now than ever

I want to re-title this blog. Mainly, I find myself not posting because the items we make at home don't contain tofu (or soy) anymore, and the title of this blog was: more tofu please!

You can see the contradiction, right?

How are we reducing our soy intake? and why?
- We eat less tofu and more seitan; seitan has a firmer texture most of the time, so El enjoys this more than tofu.

- Most of the time, we incorporate beans into our meals instead of faux meat. I love most faux meat as much as the next vegan, but El really doesn't enjoy the fauxness. This is probably because he still eats meat. However, beans add flavor and a different texture to meals. Our favorites: black beans and canellini beans.

- We drink (or use) almond milk now instead of soy milk. I enjoy soy milk, especially the holiday flavors (Pumpkin Spice is my favorite). However, I LOVE hemp milk. And really enjoy almond milk. And then there's rice milk. For people who enjoyed skim milk in their pre-vegan lives, then I highly recommend rice milk. I just can't drink it. Because the price of hemp milk is sky high, we drink almond milk. From our experience, it subs really well in pancake, waffle, and baked-goods recipes. Our product recommendation: Blue Diamond unsweetened original. Next would probably be Trader Joe's almond milk, then Silk's variety.

- When it comes to yogurt, I eat the soy version. While I'm waiting for a commercially available almond milk yogurt, I stick with Whole Soy's vanilla flavored yogurt.

- This leads to: why the reduction? I have felt a noticeable difference in how I feel (physically and emotionally) since I've cut most of the soy out of my diet. That's enough for me! El might say something like: "Moobs"